“
Bones gave a grim snort. “There is no ‘oops’ with Marie. If she sides with us, no one will dare attack within the Quarter. Even Gregor.”
“Are we staying at a hotel?”
“I have a house here, but I seldom use it anymore. An old friend lives there, keeps things tidy. Not sure how long we’ll stay since my meeting with Marie hasn’t been scheduled yet. Marie prefers to have people here if she decides to see them.”
The streets grew narrower. By the time we approached the French Quarter, they were all one-way. Brick and stone replaced stucco and plaster as the city seemed to age in an instant. Yet the most striking feature had nothing to do with architecture.
“Bones.” My head whipped around in amazement. “My God, look at them…”
His lip quirked. “Quite something, aren’t they? Don’t strike up a conversation with any of them; they’ll talk your bloody ear off.”
The ghosts were everywhere. Hovering over the rooftops, strolling down the sidewalks, sitting on benches next to (or on top of) unwitting tourists. As we stopped at a red light, our car was next to a group of people on a tour, ironically about the haunted history of New Orleans. I watched as three spirits argued over the errors in the guide’s narration. One of the ghosts was so incensed, he kept flying through the tour guide’s midsection, causing the man to burp over and over. Poor bastard probably thought he had indigestion. What he had was a pissed-off spook in his gut.
I’d seen ghosts before, but never in such magnitude. Somehow, with the vibe the place gave off, apparent even through the car, they seemed to belong here.
“It’s beautiful,” I said at last. “I love it.”
That made Bones smile, easing the strain from his face. “Ah, Kitten, I thought you would.”
The SUV stopped at an intersection past the busiest part of the Quarter. Bones leapt out and came to my side of the vehicle, holding the door open.
“We’re here.”
Rows of what appeared to be town houses dotted the street, but few had front doors.
“It’s the way they were designed,” Bones replied to my mental questions, as Band-Aid drove away, and Hopscotch stayed with us. “Creole families found them pretentious. You enter through the side.”
He went through a gate at the entrance to a narrow alley and opened a door along the wall. I followed Bones inside, struck by how opulent the interior was in comparison to the somewhat grungy exterior.
“Liza,” Bones called out. “We’re here.”
I whirled, polite smile in place, to see a girl coming down the staircase.
“How lovely to meet you, chere,” she greeted me in a lightly accented voice.
“Um…” I held out my hand, tripping over my reply. Liza was a ghoul, so she probably had socks older than me, but good God, she looked about fourteen in human years.
Her hand was thin and delicate, like the rest of her. Liza was five-two, if I wanted to round up, and had to weigh no more than ninety pounds soaking wet. Black hair that looked too heavy for her swayed when she stepped up to Bones.
“
One glance at her face when she looked at him was all I needed to confirm my suspicion of their former relationship.
Bones hugged her. Liza practically disappeared in his arms, but I caught a glimpse of her face. A beatific smile lit her features. She was pretty, I realized. I hadn’t caught that at first.
He released her, and she backed away, returning her attention to me.
“I have food prepared for you, Cat, and coffee. It was my guess you would prefer caffeine?”
“Yeah, a lot of it.” If I hadn’t been so tired, I’d have already hit Bones. She didn’t even look old enough to see an R-rated movie. “Thank you.”
I suppressed an urge to tell Liza to sit down, before the air-conditioning blew her over. Instead of the usual, instant dislike I felt for any woman Bones had slept with, I had a strangely protective feeling about Liza, absurd as that was. One, she was dead, so she didn’t need my protection. Two, judging from the discreet flashes of her gaze at Bones, she was in love with him.
“Liza, would you please inform Cat how old you were when you were changed?” Bones asked, giving me a pointed look. “I’m about to be assaulted because of a misassumption.”
She laughed, a shy series of sounds. “I was seventeen. I think if I’d been human, I would have been referred to as a ‘late bloomer.’”
“Oh.” At least that wasn’t a felony in current times, and from Liza’s vibe, that would have been legal back when she was alive. “Why didn’t you wait to change over, then?”
Something in Liza’s face clouded. “I couldn’t. I’d been poisoned and was already dead. I’m only here now because I’d drunk vampire blood that same day. My family shipped me home for burial. After my body arrived, Bones broke me out of my grave and raised me as a ghoul.”
“Oh!” Now I felt even more like a bitch. “Sorry. Whoever it was, I hope he killed the hell out of them.”
She smiled in a sad way. “It was accidental. A doctor gave me the poison, thinking he was treating me. Medicine’s come a long way since 1831.”
“Speaking of medicine, we should call Don. Maybe he has something for me.”
“Are you ill?” Liza looked surprised.
“She’s not,” Bones stated. “Has rumor of Gregor’s claims reached here yet?”
Liza shot a quick glance to me. “Yes.”
“Right, then.” Bones sounded even wearier. “Means Marie would have heard them as well.” He strode to a phone and started punching numbers into the line. After a second, he began speaking in a language that didn’t sound French, but close. Creole, maybe?
Of course, that meant I didn’t understand a friggin’ word.
“He’s telling the person who he is, and that he desires a conference with Majestic,” Liza translated, guessing my frustration. “He’s saying he wants it with all haste…they’ve put him on hold, I think…” Made sense, Bones wasn’t talking. His fingers drummed on his leg as the seconds ticked by, and then he began again. “Yes… yes…He’s agreeing to wait for a call back.”
Bones hung up. “No need for me to reiterate. Now you can ring your uncle, luv. Do it from your cell, I don’t want to occupy this line.”
He was almost curt. I reminded myself that he was suffering from jet lag, lack of sleep, and no small amount of stress. While Bones filled in Liza on details concerning Gregor, I dialed Don. By the time I hung up, Don had given me instructions on the dosage of a medication and promised to have it sent immediately to me.
“Don made something for me,” I said as soon as I hung up. “It’s supposed to knock me from consciousness straight into deep sleep, skipping REM. But it only lasts about seven hours, so then you have to counter its effects by giving me blood to wake me. That way I don’t go into a lighter, REM sleep when it wears off.”
An expression of relief washed over Bones. “Makes me glad I didn’t kill that chap when we met like I wanted to. That’s excellent news, Kitten. I didn’t think I could stand to let you fall asleep, wondering if you’d disappear from my sight even as I held you.”
The emotion in his tone dissolved my earlier irritation at him. If the shoe were on the other foot, and it were Bones who could vanish, yeah, I’d be spitting nails, too.
“I’m not going to disappear.” I went to him and wrapped my arms around him.
Then Liza’s phone rang.
SIX
I WANDERED AROUND THE TOWN HOUSE, struck by its size. It had a beautiful interior, wrought-iron balconies, and three levels. The walls were painted in strong hues, with white elaborate crown molding. All the bathrooms I’d seen were marble. In short, it was rich and tasteful without making me afraid to sit on the eighteenth-century chairs.
Pieces of Bones’s influence were seen amidst the feminine touches. A collection of silver knives. Couches that cradled instead of cramped. Of course, I had time to notice such things. He’d left to see Marie without me.
His announcement that he was going alone sent me into a sputtering, livid objection that had Liza hurrying from the room. Bones took my anger in silence, waiting until I’d finished to flatly refuse to take me. He said my presence would distract Marie from hearing him out, or some crap like that.
I didn’t believe him for a moment. Bones was just trying to protect me again. If I wasn’t going, no matter his claims of “safe passage,” then it meant his meeting with her was dangerous. Still, it boiled down to either physically wrestling with him when it was time for him to leave or letting him go with promises of payback. I chose the latter.
So, after I wandered around the house, I took a bath in a claw-footed tub. Then I put on a lace robe and began roaming the house again, looking for a washer and dryer. I didn’t have clean clothes to wear, and nothing of Liza’s would fit me. It was too early to buy something new, either. The only thing still open after three in the morning was the bars.
When Bones returned, it was almost dawn. He came through the door, pausing at the sight of Liza and me. We were on the floor, and I was braiding her hair. While he’d been gone, I’d struck up a conversation with Liza. She seemed to be a truly nice person, and I’d come to like her with surprising quickness. I gave Bones a single, lasered glance even as I melted with relief that he was safe, then resumed my attention to Liza’s hair.
“Your hair is gorgeous. So thick. You should grow it until you trip over it.”
“I see the two of you are getting on,” Bones said with faint astonishment. “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went, Kitten?”
“You walked in and took the stairs one at a time,” I answered. “And you haven’t barked at me to get in the car, so I take it Majestic didn’t tell you our asses were
