Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

I pulled the sweatshirt down to cover the grenade and headed down the softly lit, thickly carpeted hallway of the Monteleone’s eighth floor and back through the lobby.

My hand trembled as I hit the remote to unlock Ken’s nondescript tan sedan that had been left on the curb with his NOPD hangtag in view. God, I hoped this plan worked. Prayed the staff would power Rand’s tracking magic and be one of the elven skills I could control. He’d written down the words and told me what should happen, but it was all guesswork.

I also prayed nobody else I cared about got hurt.

As we’d agreed beforehand, I parked on Nashville beside the house instead of in the enclosed parking area behind it, the better to make a getaway if needed. Even in the illumination from the streetlights, the house looked a mess, and for the first time I realized how hard this was going to be—not the necromancer tracking, but seeing my home in ruins.

I fingered the crime scene tape crisscrossed over the back door, then ducked under it and went inside. I let out a whoosh of breath, relief draining the adrenaline from my muscles at the sight of my kitchen, or what little I could see of it from the wash of light coming from the street and the fluorescent lanterns Alex and Ken had set up around the rooms. The power had been cut to the house the night of the fire.

Alex and Ken were here somewhere, watching, waiting.

The acrid odor of charred wood, smoke, and damp burned my lungs and made my eyes water. The old Formica kitchen table with red-covered chrome chairs I’d found at a garage sale sat undisturbed but for a coat of ash from the ceiling above it. It could probably be saved. Dried mud covered the wooden floor.

I swallowed hard and stopped at the doorway into the double parlors. There hadn’t been much left in here anyway since I’d even destroyed my lawn chair, but the old millwork had been water-soaked. Some of it might be salvageable, but it was hard for me to look past the ruin to see the redeemable.

Most of the things in the room— bits of jewelry, a shoe, a seared pan I’d used in my library for stirring charms—shouldn’t have been there. They belonged upstairs, where Alex had told me nothing was left and the floor was suspect. Everything I’d worked for lay mixed in with chunks of plaster or covered in inky sludge, all the more gruesome for the shadows cast by light from the lanterns sitting in two corners of the room.

I knew it was just stuff, but sometimes stuff is important. Sometimes, stuff holds us together. Stuff bookends our lives, and stuff defines them.

I don’t remember dropping to my knees. I was just suddenly there, flashing back to my first look at the wreckage of Gerry’s house after Hurricane Katrina had sent the Seventeenth Street Canal flowing through it. I couldn’t help but go back, the first of the losses that had lined up like macabre dominoes over the last few years. The loss of my house became the final domino that threatened to bring back every unshed tear I’d choked down.

How much loss should one person have to endure? How much could one person endure? I’d asked that question before, but the hits kept coming, pressing so hard on my heart I couldn’t breathe, weighing so heavily it seemed as if I should sink through the floorboards.

Arms reached around me and the last voice I expected whispered, “Hush, baby girl.” Eugenie sank to her knees beside me, pulled me into her arms, and rocked me like a child.

If God was listening, maybe He’d sent her as a gift. Someone else I thought I’d lost but who’d made her way back to me.

“I’m sorry.” My voice was ragged with sobs, but I finally choked out that inadequate excuse for an apology. For not being able to tell her who and what I was. For the damage to our friendship. For hurting her and letting it go on so long without finding a way to make it right.

“Shhh. I’m sorry too. I let things that don’t matter get in the way of protecting what does matter. Us. You’re still my best friend, DJ.”

“You too.” I hugged her back. “I will tell you everything when tonight is done. Everything. I swear it.”

And I meant it. I couldn’t pay lip service to our friendship and then lie to her at every turn.

A clatter in the guest room, followed by a curse, reminded me why we were here. Alex came into the parlor as Eugenie and I clambered to our feet, both sniffling and puffy-eyed. Ken remained out of sight. Probably praying for God to spare him from women crying during a stakeout.

“I told her how Rand tricked you into helping him,” Alex said. “But Eugenie, you need to go home. We’re trying to set up the arsonist.”

Good cover story. “We think he’ll come back if I’m here. We’re trying to trap him.” I hugged her and whispered, “Thank you. I’m glad you were here with me when I saw this.”

“Me too.” She looked tired, and I realized with shame I’d been so angry and hurt myself I hadn’t thought about how hard this mess with Rand had hit her. She’d fallen heart-first for a man who didn’t exist, at least not in the way she thought.

“Come on, let me walk you home.” Alex’s gaze met mine over Eugenie’s head, and I nodded. We needed her safely gone.

Before they reached the door to the kitchen, a crash of splintering wood and breaking glass sounded ahead of them. Eugenie was already screaming by the time the Axeman came within my line of vision, swinging his weapon of choice in his meaty right hand. If possible, he looked even more gross than the last time I’d seen him. More burned skin. Fever-bright eyes.

Alex shoved Eugenie toward me. “Get her out of here!”

She’d gone from scared to hysterical, screaming nonsense syllables and pushing me away. “He’s not even human, DJ. Look at him! Why doesn’t somebody shoot him?”

The Axeman had stopped to look at her. “I’m not human, and as soon as I kill her, I will kill you.” With every word, he took a step closer, and Eugenie’s breath came in such short, rapid gasps I feared she’d hyperventilate.

I prayed for forgiveness and slapped her—hard. It worked, at least for the moment, and she looked at me with big eyes and a pink handprint on her cheek. “Is that him? The Axeman?”

“Yes, now go!” I herded her toward the front door. She whimpered, her eyes darting from me to the axe-wielding horror-show now charging at Alex.

“Front door,” I said, shoving her in that direction. “Go home. Lock your doors. We’ll explain later. GO!”

I turned back as the Axeman propelled Alex hard against the fireplace, the mantel cutting him across his upper back and knocking the wind out of him. He slid to a seated position on the slate hearth, wheezing, leaving the Axeman free to lumber toward me with a feral growl and a raised ax.

Fumbling in my pocket, I finally got my fingers on the immobilization charm, thumbed the top off the vial, and flung the contents at him.

Time and movement seemed to slow as Eugenie charged in front of me at the same time the dustlike particles of the charm flew forward. They hit her in the face, and she keeled over with a thud. Where had she come from? She must have circled the room to try again to reach the back door.

The Axeman laughed, spittle running down a chin and lips that were still blackened from our last encounter, with skin hanging in shreds from raw muscle and meat. “You missed, wizard. My turn.”

Great, not only was he a charred undead killer, he was a comedian.

He started toward me again, but former fullback Alex hit him with a kidney shot from behind. They hit the ground, grappling, punching. The Axeman had dropped his weapon, and I kicked the ax away from them. It hit the fireplace and sent up a cloud of dust.

Ken ran in from the guest room with his gun drawn, but he seemed unsure what to do.