The Hoodoo Detective (19 page)

“Touch me where? I don't like being unable to see or hear those two.”

“I don't like it either, but so far they haven't done anything threatening. How much of that conversation did you get?”

“They asked about the murders. You told them the victims were necromancers, and they were surprised because necromancers have power over them.”

“And they've made necromancers unwelcome in the city, apparently,” she said, “which makes this memorial for Livinia a big deal.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Why can't I see them? What makes me blind?”

“You’re not. You’ve always seen things differently. It’s why you’re so successful. And we've always known there's something different about whatever magic it is you have.”

He gave a brief shake of his head, one corner of his mouth turning down.

She twisted her wedding rings, uncertain. Perhaps whatever magic he possessed enabled him to understand her better, and she should just be grateful. But he was something more. Why was she loath to pursue that mystery?

They left the bar. Bourbon Street was a swollen, drunken river. Yellowish street lamps and flashing, colored lights from the bars made a disco of the road and glinted off Donovan's hair.

“Care for a stroll before heading back to the hotel?” he asked. “I need air.”

The crowds would make things difficult for the bodyguards, and Riga wasn't fond of drunkenness. But this was Donovan's element – the throngs, the revelry, the chaos.

He raised a querying eyebrow at Ash, and the bodyguard nodded, taking up a position in front of them while his partner walked close behind. They brushed past a couple, entwined in each other’s arms, oblivious. Donovan’s shoulders loosened beneath the expensive fabric of his jacket.

She tucked her arm inside his.

He smiled down at her. “So much life,” Donovan shouted over the music. “I’d like to bottle it.”

Like a ship's prow, Ash split the crowd. It flowed around them, giving them berth.

In spite of herself, Riga began to relax. Their conversation was reduced to the occasional shouted comment.

Something flew at them from the side, and Riga flinched. Donovan reached up and grabbed the fistful of flying beads.

“For the lady.” He draped them around Riga's neck.

“I thought the beads were for Mardi Gras.”

He grinned. “It's New Orleans. Why wait for Mardi Gras? Though I should do better for you than cheap plastic.”

“Let's be authentic. I like them.” Riga pulled up her hair, freeing it from the shiny purple strand and dropping it back to her shoulders.

Music from different bars, different genres, crashed against each other, ebbed, flowed.

Another strand flew high above them. Reaching up, Donovan grabbed it easily. She released his arm, stilling as the crowd flowed around them. He seemed taller now, striding through the crowd.

Giving herself a shake, she hurried to keep up. The air was stifling. People waved and shouted to Donovan. Well, he was a minor celebrity, and maybe there were partiers here who read the business pages.

A woman screamed with laughter. The crowd whirled, a tarantella of competing music, lights, and revelry. A wave of primal joy surged through Riga, and her heart expanded. Giddy, delicious electricity flowed through her.

The crowd was a blur of people and light and shadow. Disco pin spots from a bar flashed over the mob. Donovan strode through it, a violet and gold-tinged nimbus around his ebony hair.

Scalp prickling, she scented something wild, primitive, magical. Dangerous. “Donovan?”

She relaxed her vision. His aura blazed, gold, purple and green streamers twisting off it, flooding the street. He ducked beneath a balcony. She blinked. The balcony was ten feet off the ground.

“Donovan,” she said sharply.

“Yes?” He turned to her, and he was his normal height.

“You... Nothing.” After his encounter with the vampires, her husband had gotten his usual good temper back. She didn’t want to bring up his strange magic – whatever it was – now.

A man vomited in the street.

Donovan's mouth twisted. “I've had my fun and some here have had too much of it. Are you ready to go back to the hotel?”

Riga nodded.

They turned back, fish swimming against a current of bodies. Lights strobed between warring nightclubs, casting dizzying shadows across the crowd.

Riga shook her head, disoriented. A woman buffeted her shoulder. Flinching, Riga willed herself to relax.

The bodyguard twisted around. “It will be easier if we get off Bourbon Street, move a street over.”

“Let's go,” Donovan said.

A palm struck her hard in the back. She pitched forward.

An arm wrapped around her neck, hauling her downward, pressing her head low against a man's waist, dragging her sideways. She reached in front of his hips and stretched a leg behind him, sitting.

He tripped over her leg, falling backwards.

Wriggling sideways, she slammed her elbows blindly into his chest, crotch, face.

Riga rolled across the damp, sticky pavement into a set of red-sneakered feet.

A man stumbled, spilled beer on her, cursing.

She staggered to her feet. There was a shout – Donovan.

Riga pushed through the crowd, catching glimpses of him brawling with two, thick-necked, tattooed men. The crowd closed, shifted. She pressed between two drunken college boys.

One grabbed her arm, leering. “Hey, pretty lady. What's the hurry?”

“Sorry about this.” She kneed him in the thigh, and his leg collapsed.

Gasping, Riga darted through the gap in the crowd, ignoring the curses behind her.

Donovan appeared, shoved against the brick wall of a bar. The crowd surged, and he vanished.

She struggled toward him, heart exploding in her chest. Where were Ash and the other bodyguard? She had to get to Donovan. The crowd pushed her back as ruthlessly as a Pacific wave.

Her foot caught, and she nearly fell on top of the second bodyguard, prone on the street. She grasped his arm, tugging. “Get up!”

He stirred, shook his head.

“Get up!” He'd be trampled if he didn't rise.

Blood streamed down the back of his neck.

“Donovan!”

He appeared between a gap in the crowd, his fist swinging.

The bodyguard clambered to his feet. “What...?”

Donovan fell to his knees and disappeared.

Panic blackened her mind. Reaching for her center, she grasped the magical energies, but fear fogged her thoughts. She lost the threads of the above and below. A door opened in her mind, and Riga reached for it. Reality stretched, snapped, shifted.

Her feet hit the sidewalk. Donovan and his attacker faced off in front of a restaurant window. Donovan kicked him in the crotch, and the man went down, groaning.

Ash appeared at their side, his bottom lip puffy and bleeding. “Come on!” Grabbing Riga by the elbow, he hauled her down a narrow side street, plowing through the crowd like a linebacker, heedless of their indignant cries.

Breathing heavily, Donovan placed a hand on Riga's back.

They ran from the noise of Bourbon Street, maintaining a breathless pace until they reached the hotel.

In the elevator, Donovan looped an arm around Riga's shoulders and pulled her to him. “Are you all right?” he murmured into her hair.

“Fine. What happened?”

“There were at least six. They attacked en masse — two on each bodyguard and one for each of us.” He rubbed his jaw. “Dammit, where is the other bodyguard?”

“He got knocked down, and I lost track of him.” She'd been too focused on Donovan.

“Forget him,” Ash said.

The doors slid open, and they walked into the carpeted hallway. It smelled of flowers and furniture polish.

“I can’t,” Riga said. “He was up and moving when I left him, but disoriented. We shouldn't have left him.”

With his thumb, Ash wiped the trickle of blood trailing down his chin. His cell phone buzzed. “It's Frank. He's okay.”

Outside their door, two beefy guards glared down at Angus and Wolfe, seated against the wall, hands on their heads.

Donovan strode forward. “What's going on?”

“These two said they want to talk to you,” one of the guards said. “I suggested they leave a message with reception. They declined.”

“It's okay,” Riga said. “They're friends.”

The guard grunted. Extending his hand to Wolfe, he hauled him to standing.

“We tried calling.” Angus lumbered to his feet. “But it went to voicemail.”

“We were on Bourbon Street.” Riga checked her phone, saw the missed calls. “I didn't hear it ring.”

“Wait here.” Ash went inside their room.

“What are you two doing here?” Riga asked. “I thought you were going back to L.A.”

The young men looked at each other.

“Pen hasn't returned my calls,” Wolfe said. “I had some vacation time coming.”

Ash emerged from the suite. “It's clear. I'm going to debrief Frank then call it a night.” He shook hands with the guards, and he strode down the hall.

Donovan jerked his head toward the open door. “Let's talk inside.”

Shutting the door behind them, she led Wolfe and Angus into the living area. Oz trotted to her, tail wagging, and she ruffled his fur. It was soft and smelled of shampoo. Had the daycare service bathed him again? She was surprised the dog put up with it.

“Would you like a drink?” Donovan beelined for the bar.

“No thanks,” Angus said.

Nodding to her husband, she washed up, then sat on the couch and curled her legs beneath her. Oz sat beside her, panting. She motioned the men toward the chairs opposite. “And you decided to stay as well, Angus?”

“Yeah.” The sound tech collapsed into a wing chair. “I've got vacation too. This is my first trip to New Orleans, but I haven't had a chance to enjoy it.”

“Is that the only reason?” Riga asked.

He flushed, his freckles standing out against his pink skin. “You mean the show? Well, I don't really like the way things went down, and I don't think the story's over, but no, that's not why I stayed. Have you heard anything from Pen?”

“Not yet.” Donovan handed her a glass of Cabernet. “We've got some private investigators trying to trace her cab. If we don't hear from them by tomorrow, I'll be surprised.”

He’d be furious, and Riga would be climbing the walls. She'd told herself that Pen was fine, that the killer was targeting a group of wealthy necromancers, not teenage mediums. But her insides clenched, her throat closing. Where was Pen?

“How can we help?” Angus asked.

“Check out places you visited with her.” Absently, Riga pet the dog. “Places she knows, places she talked about seeing. Show her photo around. See if you can find anyone who's seen or spoken with her and knows which way she went after she left.”

“What about you?” Wolfe said. “Have you done any work with
Mean Streets
today?”

“
Mm
, no.”

Angus and Wolfe glanced at each other.

Wolfe rose. “Let us know if anything happens. We're still your crew.”

Donovan showed them out the door, and Riga went to the balcony window, slid it open.

Brigitte hopped inside. She fluttered atop the dining table, gouging its finish. Riga winced. The dog growled softly.

“What has happened?” the gargoyle asked.

“Another attack,” Riga said. “And you know what your talons do to furniture.”

“Do not be pedantic. Tell me about ze attack.”

“We were jumped on Bourbon Street,” Riga said. “They're getting bolder.”

“It wasn't a bad play.” Donovan returned to the living area, swirling his brandy. “They disappeared in the chaos.”

“They? There was more than one?” Brigitte reached behind her ear with a talon and scratched. Flakes of lichen fell to the table. “So you are working against an organization, a conspiracy.”

“Or someone with the money to hire thugs.” Riga hesitated. “Something else happened. I sort of disappeared in one place and reappeared in another.”

Donovan frowned into his snifter. “I saw you appear behind my attacker, out of thin air. With all that was happening, I don't think anyone else noticed. A new spell?”

“No, I was trying to pull an offensive spell, but I lost the threads, and it just happened. This was the second time.”

“Second time?” Brigitte asked. “And why did you not tell me about ze first time?”

“What happened the first time?” Donovan asked.

“I was at one of the murder scenes. It was cluttered with cursed and dark objects, and between them and the dark magic and the murder, all I wanted was to get out. And then suddenly I was outside in a neighbor's garden.”

Donovan rubbed the back of his neck. “They didn't catch that on camera, did they?”

“No. They didn't allow cameras in the house, and Dirk's back was turned. But Hannah's grandfather saw me appear. He seemed to take it in stride.”

“Speaking of seeing things,” Donovan said. “Brigitte, maybe you can answer this question. Why can't I see vampires?”

“You cannot see vampires?” Brigitte blinked, a grating sound. “Interesting. You have not succumbed to their delusion. Most rare.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Vampires exist only because they believe they exist,” Brigitte said. “They willed themselves into existence. You do not believe in their undead reality, and so for you they do not exist.”

“But what does it mean?” Riga asked. “Why is he immune?”

The gargoyle shrugged. “How should I know? I am not an encyclopedia for you to look up answers you are too lazy to discover for yourself. Now tell me about this new magic. What happened? What were you thinking and feeling?”

“I was disoriented,” Riga said, “frantic, could barely figure out which way was up. And then I was outside it all, looking in.”

“You say you lost ze threads. What threads?”

“The above and below.”

“But not ze in-between?”

“Nooo... That was still there.” Riga’s gaze went distant. The in-between was always there. It was everywhere. She couldn't understand what had happened.

“So you teleported?” Donovan asked. “That will cut travel time.”

“Not teleportation,” Brigitte said. “That is science fiction. She walked in between. But that is not necromancy. That is ze magic of—”