Cold Reign

  When the servants left, Brenda closed the door behind her, guarding the hallway and our privacy. I said, “I think I whupped your butt in there, dude.”

  Gee poured tea and pushed the sugar and cream to me. I wasn’t the patient type except when hunting, but I managed to not look up. I added sugar and cream, tasted, added a bit more of each, wasting his time as he was wasting mine, and settled back with a satisfied sigh. The tea was good.

  “You twisted time,” he said mildly.

  “I did.” It had been caught on tape a few times. It wasn’t like it was a secret.

  “Only arcenciels can twist time.”

  “And Brute,” I said.

  “The werewolf?”

  “Werewolf touched by an angel. And me. Also touched by an angel.”

  He thought about that as we sipped and ate sandwiches. They were nearly as good as Bruiser’s cucumber sandwiches. They’d have been better with beef and bacon, but no one had asked me.

  “I see,” he said, after an extended time.

  “Angels and arcenciels and Anzus were on Earth and interacting with humans at about the same time, and of them all, only arcenciels could be trapped and their magic used. Only arcenciels could become magical slaves.” They could be trapped in quartz crystal and their time-altering gifts melded to the will of the owner of the crystal. I’d seen it. I wondered if arcenciels were the mythical source of the djinn trapped in bottles for their magic, though the rainbow dragons were trapped in crystals, not lamps. “Did you know a winged dude named Hayyel?”

  Gee’s mouth turned down in distaste. “I am not permitted to speak of messengers, celestial warriors, creatures of light, or time.”

  There didn’t seem to be much to say to that, and Gee looked like he was thinking hard. I waited him out and sipped some more. It was really good tea. Only the best for the suckheads and their employees. I poured myself a second cup and warmed Gee’s cup.

  “I may not offer to speak of many things, but in return for that information I will gift you answers,” he said at long last.

  Meaning that if I asked questions, he might be able to respond. “Goody. Two for starters: Why is Troll helping Ro Moore? What do you know about the storm overhead?”

  “Tom, the primo of the heir of the Master of the City, Katherine, is helping Ro Moore, the heir’s new Enforcer. It was decided that all our top three Mithrans should have Enforcers. This will increase their importance to the European Mithrans. You will have an Enforcer as well.”

  I laughed. “An Enforcer will have an Enforcer? You already stuck me with a vamp primo and a werewolf.”

  “The head of Clan Yellowrock will have an Enforcer,” he clarified. “It has been decided,” he added, making it clear it was out of my hands. “It has been suggested that Eli Younger will become your Enforcer.”

  Time didn’t bubble again, but my heart did skip a beat. An Enforcer took first challenge to all blood duels. Eli was great with firearms and hand-to-hand and things that go bang. Not so much with long swords. And then I knew exactly what to do, as clearly as if God himself had stuck the idea into my head. “Nope. You know that boon you owe me? The one from way back? I’m claiming it. I want you as my Enforcer.”

  Gee DiMercy splashed tea over the cup edge onto his hand. His face contorted into some kind of horror. I just grinned. “Welcome aboard Clan Yellowrock. Get with Eli for your place to sleep at the house. Maybe Ed will share his nook under the stairs. It’ll be tight but I think you can manage it. Ed’s good with hair. Maybe he’ll groom your feathers for you.” I set down my cup, stood, and opened the door. “And I think that concludes my business here today.” I closed the door and smiled up into my honeybunch’s face. “Hi ya, Bruiser. Thought I smelled you in the hall.”

  Bruiser returned my smile, his brown eyes warm, his Bruiser/Onorio scent like citrus and . . . Onorio. That was a scent all his own. Beast started a purr that I barely kept inside.

  He said, “If you’re finished baiting the locals, would you accept an invitation to join me for a trip on a boat?” He held out a hand and I placed mine into his heated one as we walked to the elevator.

  “In a storm? Sure. Why not?” The elevator doors closed and we ascended to the ballroom level in back, talking as we moved.

  “You heard?” I asked.

  “I heard. Onorios have very good ears. Leo will be displeased at your presumption,” he said with a secretive and delighted twist to his lips. He lifted our clasped hands and kissed the back of mine in that old-world charm that made my heart melt into a puddle of goo. Bruiser was pleased at what I had done.

  I wasn’t sure when it had become important to please another person, but it had happened around the time that Yellowrock Clan had first been mentioned. Clans, in the Cherokee tradition, had rules and regs about interpersonal relationships; pleasing and supporting each other was a big, if unspoken, part of that. I didn’t remember much about my own Cherokee tradition, but I remembered that. Just as important, at some point over the last few months Bruiser had stopped being Leo’s footstool and started being Onorio. That meant he’d started putting me before his former master. This change had nourished the small bud of happy now growing inside me. Happy was scary. I had never done happy. “Leo can kiss my pretty, golden-skinned bottom.”

  “No. He cannot.”

  The happy bloom got bigger. So did the scary. I wasn’t sure I had really been happy since my father died. Happiness and death were mixed up inside my head from that juxtaposition, as if being happy meant waiting for death to happen. Together we exited the building to stand under the porte cochere. “Wait. Did you say I’d be joining you for a trip on a boat? A boat? Unless you got an ark out there, I’m not interested in going on a boat in this weather.” Bruiser opened the passenger door of one of Leo’s limos, armored and heavy and very familiar. Especially the floor of this one. I looked at the floor and he read my mind.

  “Sadly not today. But soon. I promise.”

  I slid in and removed the top from a bottled Coke I took from the tiny refrigerator. I had never had a bottled Coke—real glass and everything—until recently, and now the flavor of canned or plastic-bottled Coke—aluminum or plastic and a touch of bleagh—had begun to pall on me. I figured that the glass bottles were intended for Leo and the cans for the hoi polloi like me, but that only made them taste better. Bruiser slid in beside me. He wasn’t dressed in his usual dress pants and dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, but in jeans, a T-shirt that traced his abs like a lover’s hand, and a navy wool pea jacket, unbuttoned. With butt-stomper boots. There were two rain ponchos resting over the seat across from us. And rain boots. And life vests. The limo pulled away.

  “You were serious. We’re going out on the water in this gale.”

  “We are. There is something you should see.”

  “Ducky. Not. My magic is reacting to the storm. To the lightning specifically.”

  “I saw.” His eyes rested on me, his lids low, his lips quirked up on one side with delight. “On the monitor, along with the entire security team, and Eli, gathered in the main security office. When you vanished, reappeared, and pinned the Mercy Blade, they broke into spontaneous applause.”

  “Yeah?” Okay. I could live with applause.

  “Yes. You took him. He dropped his weapons. And you didn’t vomit blood or grow claws. It was impressive. And something that might get leaked to our enemies. There were a lot of people in the room and not all of them are fully trustworthy.”

  “That could be a good thing or a very bad thing. But we’re going to a boat?”

  “A very nice boat with a snug cabin and a teakettle.”

  Bruiser had never taken me on a very nice boat with a cabin and a teakettle. “It’s about the storm, isn’t it?”

  His face went grave. “It is.”

  “And about my magic changing?”

  “Possibly that too.?
??

  CHAPTER 8

  A Felon with Employment Offers from the DOD

  The limo trailed through the streets to the docks at Bayou Bienvenue Marina off Highway 47—Paris Road to the locals. The marina led to several bodies of water, including the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal, Lake Pontchartrain, and Lake Borgne.

  Bruiser and I raced onto a very nice boat and into the snug cabin with its teakettle. I wasn’t up on my nautical terms. But the boat was wide and the hull didn’t go down into the water much, which seemed smart in the half-swamp, half-navigable waters around New Orleans. It did move around beneath me, though, and Beast turned tail and disappeared. I guessed she didn’t like the blustering wind that buffeted the boat or the unsure footing. My stomach didn’t like them either.

  There were thumps and jars above us as the sailor types—a captain and a first mate?—got us ready to shove off. Bruiser poured me ginger tea and watched me sip it, sitting cautiously on a bench attached to the wall and floor, my poncho dripping and my borrowed rain boots puddling storm water. I put a smile on my already-green face, downed the tea, and got ready to pretend enjoyment.

  The mate shoved us off into the storm. The water, even in the protected areas, was worse than choppy. It was heaving and cresting and the wind was gusting. I stood and braced my feet, gripping a railing at my shoulder level. I swallowed down my gorge and said, “So where are we going on this little three-hour tour?”

  Bruiser laughed. “Gilligan’s Island. How could a youngster like you know about Gilligan’s Island?”

  “Reruns.”

  “I could stand being shipwrecked on a tropical isle with you.” Which made my toes curl in my boots, or would have if they weren’t clawing through my boot soles to get a grip on the shifting floor. “But for now,” Bruiser continued, “we’re taking the outlet that leads to Lake Borgne, out just beyond the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier.” He patted the upholstered mattress-seat-huge-cushion beside him. I thought I might toss my cookies and spoil the moment, so I attempted a smile, rebraced my feet, gripped the shelving rail, and held on. Fortunately it wasn’t a terribly long trip and the lightning had eased. Again. Which was really odd.

  When the boat slowed and I could let go with one hand, I sent a text to Alex asking him to track the spates of storm activity. It seemed too regular to be natural. Almost like clockwork. Not that it went away entirely, or enough for me to let go and stand on my own two feet. “What I want you to see can be seen only in the storm,” he said, extending his hand.

  I gave him a look. A mean look. But the compassionate one I got in return suggested that I’d sent him a seasick look instead. I took his hand and let him help me onto the deck.

  He stood behind me and wrapped one arm around me, holding me close. With his other hand, he pointed out in the rain and wind, and across a mucky sandbar. At first I didn’t see it, but then I realized that my eyes were slipping past something, almost as if it were pushing my attention away. “Obfuscation spell,” I said.

  I felt his jaw move beside my temple, close enough for me to hear softly spoken words. Bruiser was taller than me, so the sensation was both familiar and unusual. “The spell was never intended to work with rain. Unlike light, which can be reflected or refracted, the rain hits the boat and trails down it, giving us an outline.”

  “You discovered this how?”

  “Coast Guard investigated a fisherman’s report of a ghost ship and asked the local Mithrans to check it out.”

  There was something in his tone that suggested he knew my next thoughts even before I voiced them. I pressed my head against his and said, “A water witch with strong air witch tendencies must be aboard. The storm systems colliding feels wrong. Not natural.” He waited until I said the more likely possibility. “But since the witch conclave ended and the witches and Leo are in each other’s pockets, this is either an unknown witch group attacking New Orleans, or a powerful water-witch-turned-vamp.” I wrapped my arms around his, holding us together. My nausea slipped away, replaced by an adrenaline spike that I knew he could smell. “There are no witch-vamps among Leo’s own who could do this. Therefore, there is most likely some unknown European vamp-witch sitting in a spelled boat, just off our shores.”

  He nodded. “I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Alex Younger to research the histories and see if he can discover who might be causing the storm. He’s binging on energy drinks already.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly, watching the rain conflict with the obfuscation spell. “Can you tell how big the boat is?”

  “We can’t risk getting close enough to get a firm reading, but smaller than Her Royal Majesty’s Queen Mary Two, larger than a tramp steamer. If the winds abate, we’ll send a drone over it. But it’s big enough.”

  Big enough to ruin our safety and our lives. Got it.

  Bruiser said something to the captain and guided me back inside, where he poured another cup of ginger tea. He left me sipping while he returned to the deck and chatted sea-type stuff with the captain. Manly stuff about Mississippi River men.

  Mississippi River men were legendary. They knew the river, every turn, every sandbar, every wreck buried in mud. Nothing moved up or down the powerful waterway with its shifting bottom without them. The entire nation’s trade depended on them. I could feel the pull of Onorio magics, new to me, potent and surging as the tides, as Bruiser encouraged the maritime types to like him, to trust him, to talk to him like a friend. When he had won their trust, he asked how the Mithrans who protected the city—that’s what he said, protected the city—might discover who among the elite group of river men had been contacted to bring the ship’s passengers ashore, or the ship to a berth. They started bandying names back and forth. All palsey-walsey.

  I sat on the cushioned bench for the trip back and texted. Eli got a full description of the boat with a suggestion that he contact those people he had mentioned, the ones in Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the multiple branches of the U.S. military. If a ghost ship was coming ashore, we’d need all the help we could get. I queried the Kid for updates. There was nothing new except a small fistfight turned gun battle outside of Arceneau Clan Home. There was a magical storm and multiple riots at the same time. Riots in a storm. People didn’t riot in storms.

  Grégoire, Leo’s boy toy and second in line to the Mastership title, was safe in HQ, but I had never believed in coincidence. Arceneau Clan Home would be my next stop.

  • • •

  Leo’s limo maneuvered the streets through the storm and the traffic that looked like a dozen kittens had attacked a ball of yarn, Bruiser and me tapping and swiping our electronic devices. The intimacy of the twenty-first century. Not. But we felt an expectation of Big Bad Uglies heading our way, and good coms made us safer.

  Brandon and Brian were standing under the small porch roof at Arceneau Clan Home, decked out in the Enforcer version of riot gear. A moving van was out front and burly blood-servants and -slaves were loading up the house’s contents. “Grégoire’s moving?” I asked.

  Bruiser’s lips twitched with satisfaction. “No. Leo decided a week ago that the accommodations at any of the five-star hotels in the city were”—his voice took on a French accent similar to Leo’s for the next few words—“‘simply not up to Mithran standards.’ In his position as host, he decided to garrison half of the Europeans here and the rest of our visitors in the Council Chambers. Scrappy drafted the letter on parchment with all proper calligraphy, Leo signed it, and it went on its way, airmail. Leo found the entire ploy entirely too amusing.”

  I didn’t comment on his use of the nickname Scrappy. Leo’s secretary’s real name was Lee, but I had been calling her Scrappy because of her red hair and fiery temperament. It had caught on. Maybe even with Scrappy. “But the purpose was to divide and conquer?”

  “Exactly. The soldiers will be billeted here.”

  “I like.?
?? Pulling our ponchos over us, we stepped into the downpour. Water ran in the streets and had been running long enough that the filth had been deposited into the city’s drainage system, leaving the surface of the earth nice and clean. The city even smelled fresh, an uncommon occurrence. Walking in the rain, I stomped once in a puddle. And stopped. I hadn’t intended to do that, not consciously, but the splashing water was kinda nice. I stomped again, the water spraying up over my boots. Bruiser was watching me, a look of . . . something . . . on his face. He held out his hand, I took it, and together we wove through the workers who were carrying out priceless antiques covered with plastic. We were met in the entrance of the Clan Home by the Robere twins.

  “Howdy, boys,” I said. “So tell me about the security upgrades. Alex has all the deets but I’ve left it to him. Oh. And the hidden cameras Leo authorized and had Derek install without my oversight? I totally get it now, with the plan to park some of EVs here.”

  “You knew about those?” Brandon said.

  “Of course I knew. Derek and Pauline Easter are good, but they’re amateurs. The Kid is a felon with employment offers from the DOD. He’s better than good.”

  The twins exchanged looks, one of those multilayered communication things twins can do. “We see,” they said together. I just narrowed my eyes at them and walked into the three-story house. It was larger and deeper than it looked from the outside, forty-six feet across the front, and twice that deep on its small lot. The central hallway led past a wide staircase in the foyer, the floors and stairs carpeted with Oriental rugs in shades of blue and gray and black. The dining room was off the foyer, with a hand-carved cherrywood table and chairs and loads of china showing through glass doors of the built-in cabinetry. Across the hallway from it was a parlor filled with antique upholstered furniture, statues, and objets d’art. Gilt-framed paintings hung on the right wall in the wide hall, and a mural graced the left.

  The scent of coffee and tea lingered on the air from a butler’s pantry that separated the dining room from the expanded kitchen added on in back. There was also an old-fashioned music room behind the parlor and a library behind that. Staff quarters were on the left at the back of the house, for the servants, including security. Arceneau Clan Home was überfancy and überexpensive, tasteful in ways I had yet to become comfortable with. The cameras were set into the light fixtures, complicated things with sensors and on-off switches. When the place was swept for electronics, Alex or someone at HQ could deactivate them and then reactivate them once the EuroVamps felt secure. The cameras were everywhere. And even with my experience, I couldn’t spot them.