Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

My heart gave a lurch at the screech of tires in the main parking lot, and I scrambled to my feet, ready to run to the transport.

“It’s just Alex,” Rene said. “You called him?”

Actually, I hadn’t. But there he was, running for us at a full sprint, the driver’s side door of his truck hanging open.

As soon as he spotted us, he slowed to a trot, then a walk, his expression— and the emotions boiling off his skin so strongly they might as well be visible— a cocktail of relief and fear, with a chaser of fury.

“Shifter’s pissed off,” Rene muttered. He met Alex halfway to the truck, stopped to talk a few seconds, then continued walking to the parking lot. Giving us privacy.

“Thank God.” Alex jerked me into a hug, and I wrapped my arms around him, giving myself over to the aftershock I didn’t realize I’d been holding back. His hand traced circles on my back till I finally stopped shaking. Neither of us spoke for a long time, and I calmed at the slow, steady beat of his heart beneath the soft fabric of his black sweater.

Finally, I pulled away enough to look up at him, but kept my hands on his arms like they were anchors. “How did you know I was here?”

Alex took a step backward, and I let my hands drop. “From Randolph. I guess one of the bonding side effects is he can tell if you’re in trouble. He said he couldn’t drive right now, so he called me. I’m glad he did. And I’m glad you brought Rene with you, but you should have asked me.”

I wrapped my arms around my middle, suddenly chilled. “You were so angry when you left my house after the meeting with Zrakovi, I wasn’t sure you would come. Plus, you weren’t answering your phone. I wanted to give you some space.”

He opened his mouth to respond but sirens—lots of them— were speeding our way. “We’ve gotta get out of here.” He looked around. “I take it the smell of burning rubber and gasoline is coming from your Pathfinder? Where was it parked?”

I pointed at the smoke drifting from behind the fire- mangled fence and started walking toward his truck. “There’s what’s left of it. And yeah, I blew it up. I’ll fill you in on the way home.”

Ever practical, Alex insisted on driving to my spot behind the park, where we all did a quick search to make sure my license plate and any other identifiable, unburned parts of the Pathfinder were collected.

“You realize that once again I’ve hidden evidence?” Alex grumbled, sounding more like himself. He drove, I sat in front, and Rene had stretched out on the back seat with the portion of half- melted dashboard that had my VIN on it. The cut on Rene’s face, which he’d gotten when the Axeman backhanded him in the rat building, had almost healed.

“Before I met you I never hid evidence.” Alex slung gravel as he turned onto a side road and wound his way back toward civilization. “Now, thanks to you, I’ve hidden bodies. I’ve lied to the police. I’ve falsified reports to the Elders. I’ve been cursed by a maniac nymph and turned into a pink dog. And let’s not forget looking the other way when your friend Jean Lafitte stole a goddamn Corvette.”

That was the longest speech I’d heard Alex deliver in a while. I bit my tongue and looked out the window, while Rene chuckled softly from the backseat. No point denying I’d been a bad influence on Mr. Straight and Narrow, but I hadn’t forced him to do any of those things.

“Why couldn’t Rand drive?” He had a van for hauling plants, and some kind of boxy earth-friendly car.

“No idea. Don’t care.” Alex took a curve too fast, and I grabbed the edge of the seat. He’d sealed his emotions like the lid of a mason jar, but he didn’t drive this way when he was calm. Thank goodness Rene was with us; it prevented us from fighting. I couldn’t handle another argument right now, and we seemed to keep treading the same patch of ground.

“Tell me what happened back there.”

I gave Alex a blow-by-blow of the Axeman’s attack. He kept his eyes on the winding roads, but listened intently. “What was the make and model of the car that dropped him off?”

“I don’t know. Looked new.” I turned to Rene. “Did you catch what model it was?”

“No.” He sat up and looked out the window. “Black or dark-gray sedan, dark-tinted windows . Really dark tint. It didn’t have a license plate on the front. Looked expensive.”

Alex handed me his cell. “Call Ken—speed dial five—and tell him what happened.” He’d gone into full enforcer mode, which seemed to calm him down. At least he wasn’t driving erratically anymore.

When I got a little carried away telling Ken about how fast the Axeman could run, and that I thought he’d dropped his ax in the building with the rat, Alex snatched the phone from me, slammed it to his ear, and barked out the car description. “Put some feelers out. Sounds like a luxury rental so start calling the rental places and asking about their high-end stock.”

He listened a few seconds then ended the call and tossed the phone in the center console. “Where the hell was the heir apparent while all this was going on?”

“Who?” Rand was the only heir apparent I knew of, and he’d apparently been tied up with a mulch emergency and couldn’t drive.

“Hoffman,” Alex said. “Where was he? Wasn’t this supposed to be your regular lesson time?”

I shrugged. “He’s still in Edinburgh. Said he’d be back tomorrow, but I thought I’d go ahead and practice with the staff. Why’s he the heir apparent?”

Alex had wound back to the I-10 and merged into the traffic inching toward the city. “I did a little digging. You know how you said you never figured out how he got such a trusted spot with the Elders without being one himself?”

Alex had done a background check on Adrian Hoffman? No wonder I liked this man. “I thought he’d just ingratiated himself with his knowledge of elves. What else?”

“His father’s the First Elder, and I heard he was really pissed at Zrakovi for chastising Adrian after what happened last month and then sending him to New Orleans.”

“Ask me, he got off easy,” Rene said, his voice rough with emotion. I wasn’t the only one blaming Adrian for Robert’s and Tish’s deaths.

“No wonder he’s such a pompous ass.” I pondered this new bit of information. The First Elder sat at the pinnacle of the wizarding hierarchy as the se nior Elder above the seven wizards representing each continent.

I kneaded my temples, which throbbed with the aftermath of the magic I’d done, not to mention the stress. “With the staff broken, there’s probably no need for Adrian to continue these lessons unless he knows how to repair it.” Or the duct tape worked, or wood glue. Although I supposed Adrian could fill me in on other elven skills and traditions. Like bonding.

I stared out the window at the ships as we climbed the high arc of the Industrial Canal bridge, crested the summit, and crept down the other side toward downtown New Orleans.

“You think the necromancer was in the car?” I’d been thinking about it and realized there was something I hadn’t asked either Etienne Boulard or Jonas Adamson—the range of necromantic magic.

“Probably.” Alex beat a rhythm on the steering wheel with his fingers. “But unless we get a break when Ken calls the rental places, there’s not much we can do other than wait for him to come after you again. I assume he can’t come back for a while since you guys killed him—well, killed him for now.”

“Not necessarily.” A normal member of the historical undead would take a while to regenerate enough power to come back across from the Beyond on his own, especially after such a violent dispatch. The necromantic magic threw everything into question, though. The magic could speed up or even override the normal regeneration pro cess for the historical undead.