Out of Mind

There were times when his ability to hear whatever he wished to hear could be a damnable nuisance. Today, especially late in the afternoon, he had given in to a premonition that he needed to listen in to his descendants. The games they played! Sykes bringing young Ben Fortune back to New Orleans—not that Jude might not have done the same thing himself. It seemed that the problem child, Willow, had attracted attention from a malevolent force— little doubt about what that force might be—and her brother, Sykes—also Jude’s favorite—was using the occasion to play matchmaker.

Jude wholly approved of a match between Ben Fortune and Willow, as long as that young woman was ready to accept her own talents—and those of her family.

But there would be time enough to deal with that after Ben helped to make sure Willow didn’t manage to stumble into serious or worse trouble. Jude had felt her rushing through the streets, and he had heard her exclamation when she felt something odd. Small, sharp tapping on her neck.

And now some baker was dead, supposedly of a heart attack, but with small puncture wounds on his head.

Ah, yes, signs of Embran were simple to recognize once one knew what to look for.

Sykes had been down in the shop, too. He knew he should not use invisibility to hang around spying on his own family, but couldn’t seem to suppress his natural love of mischief.

Jude sighed. The red-haired issue must be dealt with quickly. Sykes, dark-haired and blue-eyed, should be running J. Clive Millet and looking out for the family since his ineffectual father, Antoine, refused to do so. Pascal didn’t want the job, or said he didn’t, but was too responsible to walk away.

Sykes’s talents were, as he’d heard some young whippersnapper say, “awesome,” and Jude was immensely proud of the one who was, unfortunately, suffering because of Jude’s own mistakes.

His eventual plan was to put all that right. And he hoped it didn’t take another three hundred years, which was the length of time he had been working on the problem so far.

Several centuries ago, after losing the love of his life to a mysterious death, Jude had married a woman Embran, in Bruges, Belgium. Of course he hadn’t known she was Embran or that she intended to use him to further her own evil plans. The Millet family had suffered unspeakably. He had been tricked by the creature’s beauty and charm—her kindness to him in his time of grief—and had no idea of her true nature or form until she managed to have his entire clan chased from Belgium by those she had caused to suspect the Millets of witchcraft.

That had started the entire superstition about dark-haired, blue-eyed males being a curse. All the Millets were born redheaded and with green eyes. Then Jude had come along and when they could no longer try to pass him off as a changeling, he was branded a mutant with hair as black as night and eyes the blue of deep water over a reef.

That was why, since Antoine Millet had shirked his duties in favor of supposedly going in search of a cure for the curse, his brother, Pascal, had taken over as Millet-in-Chief while dark-haired, blue-eyed Sykes was kept on the sidelines.

“They are all so stupid,” Jude said into the silence. “While they fuss about minutiae, enemies threaten their existence and the existence of every psychically empowered family in New Orleans, together with the poor mere humans who get in the way.”

He opened a door in an ancient dresser and slid out a painting he made himself look at occasionally, just to sharpen his determination. It showed him as a man of twenty-nine, his hair long and black as it still was, apart from some gray streaks, with the sweet-faced blonde woman who should have become his wife. On her lap was what they had jokingly called “their first child,” a dog she had adored.

Once more he recalled the pain of losing her, and his unspeakable mistake in turning to someone else so quickly. He sometimes allowed himself a little quarter because his nemesis had, in fact, been red-haired and that had been part of what fooled him into marrying her.

“Never be fooled again,” he told himself. “And make sure none of the ones for whom you care are fooled.”

There must be a way to move actively among his people without them suspecting his presence. This time he could rely on no one but himself to keep the flow of information coming so that he could direct matters as necessary.

They didn’t know it downstairs, but their enemy was already among them and Jude expected this one to make the last one look like a toy for a child to cuddle. Death was in the air, again, and a plan to reduce New Orleans to the earthly stronghold of the Embran.

There was much he didn’t yet know, but he would find out—with some help from an emissary.

He gazed down on the gathering waves of people in the streets and considered how he should choose his collaborator.

But of course! Jude laughed and braced his weight on either side of the window. Of course. He had the perfect solution to his dilemma.

Chapter 4

Willow opened the French doors to the courtyard behind the shop. She glanced back at Ben. He smiled at her, but Willow hurried outside—unsmiling—and shut the door again.

“Give her a few minutes,” Pascal said, putting the box containing Willow’s new helmet into Ben’s arms.

Marley smothered a snigger and Ben narrowed his eyes at her.

“I’ll take the gun, too,” he said.

“She shouldn’t have a gun,” Pascal said promptly.

“Come on, Winnie,” Marley said, her expression innocent. “Time to leave great male minds to work out what’s best for the little woman.”

Marley glanced past Ben and raised one fine, red brow. “Some things never change,” she said. “Are you ever going to grow up, Sykes?”

Ben grinned. Sykes Millet, a formidable paranormal force, used his ability to be invisible judiciously—except when he wanted to tease sister Marley. He never tired of sneaking up and letting her see him when others couldn’t, something he didn’t do with anyone else.

“Don’t smirk at me like that,” Marley said. She crossed her arms. “If you’ve got something useful to suggest, show yourself so we can all swoon over you.”

A heavy hand landed on Ben’s shoulder and he looked into Sykes’s brilliant blue eyes. “How long have you been here?” Ben asked.

“I was worried about Willow. Something’s definitely going on. I caught up with her in the street and came here with her—more or less.”

Pascal shrugged as if he was out of patience. “Really, Sykes. Why not meet your sister out there like any normal man and walk with her back to the shop? Why all this silly showing off?”

“Normal?” Sykes said with a wicked grin. “If you don’t know the reason for my caution, I’ll tell you. I was trying to see if there was something around that shouldn’t be there. With me walking along beside her in clear sight, I doubt there would be anything to see.”

“Was there?” Marley, Pascal and Ben asked together.

Sykes sat down and stretched out his tall body on an old fainting couch with gilded legs shaped like fish standing on their heads. He put his hands behind his neck. “Depends on what you mean by was.” Sykes appeared all shadows and angles; his eyebrows flared and he managed to look as if he belonged on the eighteenth-century couch, even if it was much too short for him.

A Renaissance man with muscles like steel, whip-fast reflexes and hands honed to weapons by years of chiseling stone, Sykes had made a name for himself as a sculptor.

Marley sighed, but Winnie trotted over to plant her front feet on Sykes’s ribs and lick his dramatic face.

“No more evasive answers,” Pascal said shortly.

“When Willow’s hair moved away from her neck out there and she felt a sensation on her neck, was there anything there if I couldn’t see it? It made her scream.”

Ben’s jaw tightened and he turned to look down on his old friend. “I saw her touch her neck just now. Why?