Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

Alex and Ken met me in the dining room, and we sat at the heavy (manly) wooden table with our beers. Over the mantel hung my housewarming gift, a framed autographed poster of Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf—an in-joke since I’d given Alex’s shifted canine version the name of Tolkien’s wizard back when I thought he’d been a normal dog.

I hoped the only Gandalf we saw tonight was the one hanging on the wall, but suspected Ken would want solid evidence that everything we told him didn’t amount to absolute nonsense. I’d need to do magic tricks, and Alex would have to bark and fetch.

“How come this feels like an ambush?” Ken took a sip of beer and shifted his steady regard from Alex to me and back again. He was an angular man of medium height, his shrewd eyes a warm greenish-brown. Even in his posture he was neat, precise, and orderly. Unlike everything in the prete world.

Alex thrummed his fingers on the table—his nervous tell. “You remember a while back I talked to you about a new FBI public-threat division based here in New Orleans?”

“Yeah . . .” Ken gave me a curious stare, probably wondering why I’d be part of this conversation. “I still might be interested in being the NOPD liaison if we can get it cleared through channels. Is that what this is about?” When he said “this,” he swirled a finger to indicate the three of us.

“Right.” Alex sipped his beer. If I didn’t have a dawning suspicion that most of the explaining was about to get dumped in my lap, I’d laugh at his discomfort. “Consider the channels cleared. Paperwork’s done. We’re a go, starting now, and there are things you need to know.”

Ken propped his elbows on the table and hunched forward— about as demonstrative as I’d ever seen him. “What do you mean ‘paperwork’s done’? My request for a change of duty hasn’t been filled out, and the pro cess can take up to a month or two.”

“Well . . .” Alex looked at me, which made Ken look at me.

My former partner was so dead.

“What Alex is saying, and doing it badly, is that this new unit has top priority among high- ranking officials,” I said. Yeah, like the Congress of Elders and the FBI’s double-secret enforcer unit. “The usual channels get bypassed. It’s a done deal unless . . .” Unless Ken had a nervous breakdown or got so distraught that I had to modify his memories and send him home with a few missing hours. I had a vial of memory-erasure potion in my jeans pocket just in case.

I pushed my chair back, unprepared for this conversation. “We need some chips. You got any chips? I’m going to run next door and get some.”

“Sit down.” Alex grumbled a curse under his breath.

“Okay, you’re both acting like freakballs,” Ken said. “Spill. And nothing personal, DJ, but how does this concern you?”

I swore if I did turn loup-garou in two weeks, Alex’s throat would be the first one I’d rip out. Mr. Macho, picking at the label of his Turbo Dog beer. More like Turbo Wuss.

“Here’s the thing, Ken.” I shot one last glare across the table. “I’m here to help explain some things about the special nature of this unit because I’ll be working closely with you guys.”

“As a risk- management con sultant?”

Ah, yes. My fake human occupation, which Ken still thought was true. “Um, not exactly.”

“Just tell me straight out if this has something to do with insurance- claim investigations. Because if it does, you can forget it.” Ken’s brows formed chevrons of confusion over his eyes.

I searched for the right words. “Sometimes, you’ve had cases where things didn’t add up, right?” I asked. “Where something defied explanation, or where you wondered if maybe things exist in this world beyond what you’re able to see?”

He gave me blank cop face. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

I sighed. “Hell, Alex, take off your pants and call Gandalf.”

***

Two shapeshifts by Alex later—plus some nifty magic tricks from me, including a narrow thread of fire intended to travel from the elven staff to the dining room fireplace but which instead burned a small corner off Alex’s antique mantel—and Ken’s hands shook. I could tell because he’d taken out his pen and was flicking the ballpoint in and out, in and out, in and out.

Alex hadn’t bothered fully dressing after Ken demanded he shift to his enormous dog alter ego the second time. He’d pulled the jeans back on and stayed barefoot and bare-chested. Which I found inappropriately distracting. But damn.

“One more thing we need to tell you,” Alex said. “The reason we had to do this tonight involves Jake. He’s in trouble.”

Ken had been staring into space, slightly openmouthed, but now his jaw clamped shut and he focused on Alex. “What about Jake? Please don’t tell me he turns into a dog too.”

I gave him a tight grimace. “No, a wolf. As in big and bad and would eat your grandmother with little provocation.”

“Holy Christ.” Ken finished his beer in a single swallow and crossed his arms. He stared at the table a moment, seemed to reach some conclusion, and nodded. “Tell me where Jake is, and what he needs.”

Hearing those words, I relaxed. Jake had been right. Ken would flounder over this revelation for a few days but he would adjust.

“Remember right after Katrina, when the wild animal attacked Jake?” Alex asked.

Ken nodded. “And when he recovered, the injuries he brought back from Kabul, the ones the doctors failed to fix, disappeared almost overnight. You tellin’ me his recovery was something preter . . . preternatural? Because, man, I thought it was weird at the time.”

“The attack came from a loup-garou, a wolf that carries a virulent form of the werewolf virus.” I considered how much to tell him, and decided he didn’t need to know how magic had turned normal lycanthropy into loup-garou. “He’s had problems adjusting—his temper gets away from him. The wolf controls him sometimes instead of the other way around. He isn’t handling things well, and he’s . . . he’s missing.”

I didn’t want to go into more detail. Jake would be embarrassed and angry we’d brought Ken into this at all.

“Missing. Then we need to find him.” Ken pulled a notebook from his pocket, and wrote JAKE at the top of the first blank page. Thinking like a cop. “He saved my life over there, you know. And not just mine.”

“Not quite so simple.” Alex’s voice was a stark monotone. “Jake lost it with DJ last night. He freaked out and took off. He’s not answering his cell and hasn’t been back to the Gator. He’s drinking—a lot.”

I cleared my throat. “This ax attacker doesn’t appear to be human, and with Jake off- radar we’re going to need your help with the investigation.”

Ken set his bottle back on the table with a thud. “What do you mean, he doesn’t appear to be human? Wait. I need another beer.” He pushed out his chair and walked the length of the house to the kitchen, giving Alex and me a chance to exchange nods.

“That wasn’t too bad,” I said with a sigh. “He’s going to be fine.”

Things had not been quiet in the Crescent City overnight. Besides the usual gang shooting or two, a young woman had fallen from the third-floor balcony of an unoccupied building in the lower French Quarter a block off Esplanade. Sometime in the early hours of morning, she’d been found in a cold, drizzling rain, blood from a head wound the shape of an ax blade pooling on the concrete beneath her. The bloody ax had been propped against the doorjamb of her bedroom.

The local TV station reran its hour-long special on the original Axeman and dug up a New Orleans history expert, who pointed out that the ax attacks weren’t exactly like the famous series of assaults and murders that occurred during 1918 and 1919. The original Axeman, he said with great authority, had been much less brutal, often using a straight razor to cut his victims’ throats and then going to work with his ax. Furthermore, he rarely arrived with his own ax, but used the one belonging to the victim.