Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

Besides, we’d all agreed it would be better for me to stay off- radar until we had our plan set.

“You coming back to New Orleans once the elves have settled down?” I’d promised myself I wouldn’t pressure Jake. For one thing, it always backfired. For another, there was Alex to consider. I’d done my share of sending mixed signals between the Warin cousins, but I had made my choice and he was back in New Orleans.

Jake walked a bit farther before answering. “I like it here, DJ. I like working for Jean, at least for now.” He gave me a sidelong glance, and I could sense his trepidation. He was afraid I’d argue with him.

I took his hand. “I understand. You do what you need to do. I’ll tell Alex you’re okay.”

He smiled, and I caught my first glimpse of the dimples that had done me in the first time I met him, back in the first days after Katrina. In hindsight, those days— which had seemed so chaotic—had been much, much simpler. “I doubt he’s worried about much besides wringin’ my neck, sunshine.”

I laughed. “You guys can pretend you don’t care about each other all you want. I know better.” Bottom line: no matter how angry Alex got at Jake, he’d want whatever was best for him, and vice-versa. Jean had made me realize that, for now, Jake needed to stay here. He needed to be a good soldier. He needed to fight off his anger. He needed to stay out of his own head. As for Alex and me, we had to smooth things out, whether it meant being together or just relearning how to back away and be friends again. The close call with the Axeman, and this forced separation, had made me realize I wanted to see where our relationship could go. I wanted it so desperately my chest ached. But I couldn’t be someone I wasn’t, and only Alex could decide if the chaos of my life was something he could live with. Whatever conclusion he came to, we had to come out as friends on the other side. We had to.

Jake and I walked up the rise in silence and hugged before he turned and started back toward the beach. I stepped into the transport set into the marshy sand and watched him walk away. I didn’t know when I’d see him again, which hurt. What happened to him wasn’t fair, but if Hurricane Katrina had taught us anything, it was that sometimes fairness was only a lucky twist of a capricious wind.

Ignoring the stares from tourists, I trudged through the plush Monteleone lobby as fast as my bare feet could slap along the cold marble floors. Fortunately, it was busy mid-afternoon check-in time, so none of the hotel staff paid any attention to the limping woman in an early nineteenth-century gown flashing too much cleavage, clutching her ribs, and holding on to a two-foot-long cracked stick of wood as she rushed through their fine establishment.

I stepped onto the elevator with a young couple wearing blinding white tennis shoes—the sure sign of tourist-hood. New Orleans wasn’t the cleanest city, and most of us quickly abandoned white footwear unless, like shrimp boots, they could be hosed down.

The couple tried to stare at me without staring, but finally I said, “Pirate re-enactment. Lost my shoes.” They laughed and said how much they loved New Orleans. Such spirit. Such zest for life. Such character.

They had no idea.

I’d been up for more than twenty- four hours with very little to eat, so the closer I got to Jean’s suite, the more exhaustion weighed on me. I needed a shower, something from room service (charged to the account of “John Lafayette”), and a nap, in that order.

First, though, I had to call Alex and see if he was too angry to sit down and talk strategy after Jean arrived. Whatever we did, Alex and Ken needed to be in on it.

He answered his cell on the first ring. “Where the hell is she, you son of a bitch? I might not be able to kill you permanently, but I can make you suffer.”

It took a second to realize he’d seen the Monteleone on his caller ID and thought it was Jean. “It’s me, Alex.”

A heart beat of silence. “Where are you? What room?”

I flipped over the key card I’d thrown on the coffee table, but it didn’t tell me a number. “Eighth floor. Eudora Welty Suite. I—”

“Do. Not. Move.”

“I—” I’d been about to say give me an hour for a shower and bring me something to wear, but he’d already hung up.

Damn, this wasn’t going to be easy. I wanted to wrap my arms around Alex, to have him hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. I didn’t want to argue with him, or feel like I couldn’t be what he wanted.

I figured there was time for at least a quick shower before he arrived—twenty minutes to drive to the Quarter and another ten to find parking. It should be longer than that before Jean arrived.

Groaning, I shucked bits of period clothing along the thick carpet as I shuffled toward the bathroom. I glanced around the bedroom suite, wondering if Jean had left anything of interest, like clothing. The color scheme of royal blue and cream carried over from the huge sitting area outside, with a brass chandelier overhead. Too bad I didn’t have time to plunder fully, but I did open the armoire and find a thick white hotel robe on a heavy wooden hanger next to shelves piled with folded pirate clothes.

The hotel would charge for the robe, but I was racking up debts to Jean at an alarming clip. What was one more?

The warm water, soap, and shampoo stung my cut and bruised feet, but turned my sore muscles to rubber. I was healing at a nice, slow, wizard rate. The concrete scrapes along the side of my face had scabbed, but I had a big, dark bruise the shape of a bedpost across my ribcage where the Axeman had slung me.

When I was growing up, I never saw Gerry come home with bruises and cuts and broken bones. I’d like to think the world in which I was a sentinel had gotten a lot more brutal than his pre-Katrina days. I didn’t much like the other option—that I wasn’t very good at my job.

I’d just toweled off and shaken the loose water out of my hair when I heard Alex calling my name. The man must have sped through town and parked on the flipping sidewalk. And how did he get in the suite? It sounded like he was right outside the bathroom—

“Wait!” I scrambled for the hotel robe as he opened the door. “Let me—”

“God, DJ.” I barely had a chance to see the dark circles under his eyes before he’d pulled me against him. One arm held me to his chest so tightly it hurt my ribs, while the other hand touched my hair, my face, my shoulders. “You scared the shit out of me. When I saw your house . . .”

I’d ask about the house eventually. Right now, I had everything I needed, and as much as I wanted to be cool and sexy and detached, all I could do was wrap my arms around his waist. Everything was such a damned mess. I don’t know how long we stood that way, him rubbing my back and holding me close.

Finally, he loosened his grip and I stepped back, wiping my eyes with the too-long sleeve of the robe.

“Where have you been?” His voice was rough, and his control was shot. I could feel the emotions rolling off him, making me shiver. Fear, relief, anger, all in one big shapeshifter tangle.

“Didn’t you get my message?” I grabbed his hand, holding it between mine. I needed to touch him.

“I got this stuck under the windshield wiper of my truck.” He dug in his jeans pocket with his other hand and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He shook it out and held it up. Expensivelooking, handmade paper with two words of looping, ornate handwriting I recognized as Jean’s: “Drusilla lives.”

Oh good Lord. I should have known not to trust Jean to do more than the bare minimum. “I’m sorry. I asked Jean to get word to you that I was in the Beyond, at Barataria. I had to escape through a transport and didn’t want . . . I couldn’t . . .” The tears started again, and I dashed them away impatiently. Of all the times to turn into a whiny girl, this wasn’t it. “Is Sebastian . . .” I couldn’t finish a sentence.