Bite Me: Big Easy Nights Read online

  Damn it. Trading his head for Paul would have been the surest bet.

  “If anything happens to Paul,” I said, “I’d better be ashes in the wind or I will burn this freaking Disney mansion to the ground.”

  “I believe you. Now that we have each established that we are too dangerous to be trifled with, may we move on?”

  “May I call you MC? Because Master of Ceremonies is just way too formal. What does your mother call you?”

  “Ms. Bouchard—”

  “MC it is.”

  “Ms. Bouchard.”

  “And can I be honest? The raven in the corner is just one prop too many. Really. Because it’s not at all, you know, creepy.”

  “Ms. Bouchard!”

  “I can do this all night, MC. Since you want to talk, I mean.”

  He sank into one of the room’s high-backed chairs and regarded me with a frown.

  “I don’t think you appreciate the—”

  “You know, you really need a white cat to stroke.” I relaxed into the chair opposite him. “Since you haven’t dragged me up to the attic, you grabbed Paul because you want something. Since I’m not cooperating until Paul is free and that window behind you is open, there’s no need for me to listen to you till then, is there? So what have you got to drink? ‘Cause I feel like an A positive. I’m guessing your coffee is bayou mud.”

  The clock in the corner (Marc the Raven’s perch) ticked while I tried to recognize the strain of orchestra music teasing my ears. MC’s mouth finally smoothed out, and he reached into his jacket to withdraw his cellphone. I didn’t tense, ready to pull the Kel-Tec and do my best if I didn’t like what I heard. Instead, he gave instructions that Paul was to be released and given the phone. More time ticked by until he nodded and tossed the cell to me.

  “Jacky? Where are you?”

  MC rose and opened the window. “I’m fine,” I said, watching him. “Did they hurt you?”

  “They suckered me.” Paul sounded disgusted. “But I’m good.”

  “Where?”

  “Jackson Square.” I could hear the jazz band behind him. No, he wouldn’t want to pull his piece or go all beastly there.

  “You’re walking away. Lose them and call again when you’re safe.” I handed the phone back to MC, who gave more instructions and then called for drinks. Scarhead came back with an opened bottle of wine and a glass, another bottle and a beer glass for me. I raised my eyebrows: Blue Moon. We poured for ourselves and waited in silence. I didn’t want to be impressed, but I was; not many people could stand silence, especially in “delicate negotiations.”

  When the phone rang again MC answered it unhurriedly, then handed it to me.

  “I’m back in the precinct,” Paul said tersely. “Now where are you?”

  “I’m having a friendly conversation with our Master of Ceremonies. He’s expressing his concerns. I’ll call for a pickup.”

  Paul swore. “Half an hour, Jacky. Then I’m coming in with every gun available.”

  “That’s sweet. I’ll be good.” I was certain I heard a chuckle from MC as I hung up, but he accepted the phone with a serious face.

  “I suppose our sting operation is blown?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I quite approve of it. Continue, by all means.”

  “Well hell, more crinoline.”

  That got a louder chuckle and he waved at the goth themed room around us. “We all make sacrifices. Now, may I speak with Artemis?”

  “I left her in Chicago. What do you know about her?”

  “I know that Marie Bouchard had a daughter named Eleanor, who left New Orleans thirty years ago. I know that she and her husband, Fred Siggler were killed in an ‘animal attack’ in Chicago five years ago when their daughter Jacqueline was abducted—shortly before a nightstalking urban myth named Artemis became active. I know she went public and joined the Sentinels last fall, but disappeared again early this year. And now a young vampire named Jacqueline Bouchard is living with her grandmother.”

  “I never went public as a vampire.”

  “No, but a black clad, hooded vigilante superhero, only ever seen at night, who is inhumanly strong and possesses some kind of ‘teleportation’ power…well. How did you feed?”

  “Gangstas and players, mostly. I’m not a superhero. I can pass for one if you squint, and God knows my best friend thinks I’m one.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, and now I’d like Artemis to work for me.”

  I put down my glass, careful not to tighten up. “No.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Like I give a rat’s ass. Look MC, obviously I’ve read things all wrong and am too dumb to live. I should have known this town would have a vampire mafia—you’re practically famiglia, the way everyone talks about you, and Sable almost kisses your ring. So, no.” I could feel my blood rising, firing my nerves. Three shots, and the window was open with nobody else close enough to stop me from misting away.

  He sipped his wine, eyes not leaving mine.

  “I prefer to think of us as a mutual aid society. And if our interests march together?”

  “Oh, well then that’s just fine. Like my friends in Chicago won’t mind my crawling in bed with the mob if there’s something in it for me. Screw you and the pale horse you rode in on.”

  He shrugged. “I posted bail on Acacia’s brother and cousins.”

  “Why?”

  “Family is a wonderful thing. Should the boys be punished for picking the wrong target?”

  “They put a stake in me! How did you…”

  “Darren works for me, or rather for the LH Association and so for the vampire community. You’d be amazed how many people try to claim assault or even date rape after an evening with a vampire; a good lawyer on retainer is a must.”

  “Yeah, like influencing anyone you want into wanting to give it up for you shouldn’t be, you know, discouraged.”

  His eyes hooded. “Believe me Ms. Bouchard, it is. There is a reason why vampires in my town only openly feed in certain well known places. But we are wandering from the point, which is that I have been informed what happened, or you suspect happened, to Acacia. The police have questioned her and discounted her brother’s testimony, but however she turned, if she truly didn’t recognize her kin then she has been enthralled. I want you to take care of it.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it. “By ‘take care of’ you mean...”

  He beat his cane against the floor. “I want her free. And when you find the one who enthralled her, I do not want to hear about it on CNN. I do not want to hear about it at all. I want him delivered to me. I am a peaceful man, Ms. Bouchard, by which I mean I like things peaceful and will do what is necessary to preserve that state. Leroy is too visible and is already engaged in looking into other matters, so I want Artemis to do what she does so well.”

  He sat back. “You may consult with Leroy. You will not involve the police in your investigation. Do we understand each other?”

  The or else hung unstated between us. I picked up and finished my Blue Moon. “And my price?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you know what I am, then you understand Leroy is like me.”

  He nodded.

  “I want his sire.”

  “Done,” he said and I blinked. Too easy. I hid my confusion. There’d be time to think about it later.

  “Are we finished, then?”

  Now he smiled, and I blinked again. It was an open smile, stuffed full of silent laughter. “Surely you’d best be off, before your partner storms the villain’s lair.”

  A partner I’d just been told not to involve in any “solution” by New Orleans’ vampire godfather. Well, hell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Department of Superhuman Affairs is misunderstood; they aren’t the Men In Black. Mostly they’re a research and information department, and they coordinate operations with teams in the FBI, Secret Service, and US Marshals’ Office. Although they can
invoke emergency powers, they have to work within the framework of federal law—which is why they also use relatively autonomous civilian assets like me. I was the left hand the right hand didn’t want to know about.

  Jacky Bouchard, The Artemis Files.

  * * *

  My to-do list was getting longer: find out who paid for the hitter who almost got Grams and bury them; find out if someone had turned Acacia and deal with them; find out who had turned Leroy and do same. In my nearly five years as Artemis I’d never killed anybody other than my sire. Now time was getting short and my Shovel List was up to three deep—except you didn’t bury them in this town. It might be a list of one if some criminal mastermind was behind it all, but that only happened in movies.

  One or many, I needed to get some idea of who the enemy was before the Midnight Ball.

  By the time Paul pulled up in the Cadi I was mentally subdividing my lists. Looking purely disgusted with himself, he told me all about how they’d caught up with him right outside the cathedral. He didn’t know who “they” were, but the public grab had involved at least five—three as cover while only two held guns on him—and they hadn’t even tried to take him anywhere; just the threat of deadly violence in the middle of the crowds had been enough. They’d found some tables and drunk some beers until I’d insisted they let him walk.

  He was still burning over it. And he was going to be a problem.

  I wasn’t a team player. After nearly five years solo, a few months working with the Sentinels and then a few weeks with Paul hadn’t changed my habits. And if Artemis was going to go to war then I had to distance my activities from Paul—I didn’t need the Master of Ceremonies to tell me that. He might be able to go all furry, but he was still way too mortal and he carried a badge; getting him out of the way until I’d buried my enemies was by far the safest way.

  To my surprise, I didn’t want to.

  I missed Hope terribly—missed having someone at my back, even if having a BFF who believed I was better than I was had been a pain. Not to mention having the assets of a team nobody in their right mind would mess with… Paul finished the story of his night before I thought to ask where we were going, and when I did he finally smiled. Grinned like a kid with a surprise to share.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, turning the corner from Marketplace to Barracks Street. Almost there actually meant not too many blocks from where we started, but he’d driven roundabout to spot any tails. The Old US Mint sat on our right, a solid business row on our left—one long wall of closed-up shops, ugly, patchy grey walls and black-shuttered doors exposed by the light of iron streetlamps. Probably someone had bought the entire street of joined buildings to redevelop it, then couldn’t make it in the current economic crunch. Now locals used them to post concert ads and sale signs.

  Paul turned left onto Decatur, hit a switch, and a garage door tucked in the back of the old building’s corner shuddered open. Pulling us into the space, he turned off the car as the door closed behind us. The one bare bulb illuminating the space had come on automatically, revealing a dusty car space and empty boxes. We weren’t all that far from Grams’—or from Lalaurie House, but everything in the Quarter was close by Chicago standards.

  “What is this?” I asked as we got out.

  “I know you can find your own place for the daytime,” Paul said, handing me a flashlight and taking us through a door and into the shop’s old storage space. “But you really need a safe house. I’d been going to show you this but you dragged me off to church.” He opened the storage room door.

  “Three years ago, this place got occupied by a local gang and they forted it up. Take a look.” He waved theatrically, shining his own light on the shuttered windows. They were barred behind the shutters. I rapped an interior wall: reinforced—steel plate? Or they could have filled the hollow space with old phone books. Maybe both.

  “Upstairs is the same, and we’re talking steel shutters with fire-holes and serious locks. The garage has a back way out, and worst case scenario they could get out over the roofs. They worked for the cartels, shipped hundreds of kilos of Coke through here—more worried about rival gangs than the cops.”

  The air smelled dead, trapped, and dust motes danced in the flashlight beams as our steps kicked up the dandruff of at least a year.

  “What happened?”

  “We happened. Rolled them up in one big operation last year, and this wasn’t the only place we seized. The Cadi was part of the lot. But here’s the payoff.” He took me back into the storage room, flicked the light on. Grabbing a shelf, he pulled the back wall open to expose a steel door.

  “St. Augustine made me think of it,” he said, unlocking it. “They kept all the drugs back here in the vault—which doubled as a security room.” The room was empty except for a half-assembled motorcycle engine, a box of parts, and a can of motor oil. Somebody’s hobby? He showed me a circuit box on the wall; opened, it was a Christmas tree of lights and small screens.

  “They wired the place for serious security; every door and window is wired in, there are cameras you can monitor from here. And best of all—” he tapped what looked like a hatch with his foot. “This goes right into the sewers, with an opening big enough that they could dump the room’s contents in minutes. It’s the perfect escape route for you if anyone comes after you here.”

  He turned and looked at me. “Well, chèr? I got Emerson’s permission, got the power and water turned back on this afternoon. It’s a dump, but it’s as safe as anywhere in town. Got the car from impound on the same deal. Less visible than the van. I made sure the trunk is sealed against light and drilled a few holes in the bottom for you; you can use it as an emergency shelter if we get you caught out in the day.”

  “I—” I didn’t know what to say. He hated vampires, didn’t like voodoo even if he wore a gris-gris pouch, only tolerated working with a bloodsucker as a necessary part of his job. So, why?

  “Emerson told me the review of Acacia’s blood warrants came back negative,” he said. “We can’t link her to another vamp. Questioning Leroy about the attack was a dead end—the descriptions he gave us led nowhere, which means we’ve got vamps in town that aren’t on the radar.”

  He ran fingers through his hair, face full of concern. “Chèr, we don’t know who they are, or why they’re coming at us.”

  I pulled my thoughts together.

  “We’re done, Paul. At least for now.”

  “What?”

  “They’re coming after me. Not you, and Grams was just in the way. We’re not going out fishing together while I’m a target, I’m no use to Emerson’s V-Juice investigation, even as a material witness, and I wouldn’t accept protective custody if he offered it. So I’m not your job anymore.”

  “Chèr—”

  “Who else knows about this place?”

  “Nobody who knows about us, but—”

  “So it should be fine. Thank Emerson for me, but besides keeping my head down, what do you think I’m supposed to be doing? Nothing the police can know anything about, and that means you. Unless you’re willing to get dirty?”

  I shut up and watched him connect the dots back to my DSA job, kept my face neutral as his mouth twisted like he’d tasted something foul. Cops hated classified government ops. If he blamed a distant federal agency that was fine with me—no reason for him to know I wasn’t involving them either.

  “So you’ve got, what?” he asked, putting a nasty twist on it. “A license to kill?”

  “Something like that.” Nothing like that, but if I wanted him to step away then he had to see me as an unfriendly agent, not a partner to protect.

  He turned away, shoulders hunched, and punched the wall. “Shit, Jacky.”

  “It was fun,” I said to his back. “We should do it again, sometime.”

  “Are you going to stick around after it’s over?”

  A shrug. “Family’s here.” That much was true. I stayed where I was, but when he made to go I couldn’t
leave it at that. “Paul?”

  He turned around. “What?”

  “I— You know why I’m different from your average bloodsucker. What about you? Why not a… loup-garou? You said it was family, so what happened?”

  “What happened?” He laughed, not a happy sound. “You remember my momma’s family is Italian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Momma thought I should know my roots, sent me to Italy to stay with my uncles every summer.” He put his back to the wall, slid down to sit on the floor. “So my third trip there, my uncles took me and my other male cousins into the hills on the Feast of St. John—that’s the summer solstice. They’ve got a huge open cave, and they built a bonfire and told us about God’s Hounds, the Benandanti—the Good Walkers. We drank the family wine, they put on wolf skins, sang, danced around, and invited me to join.”

  He closed his eyes. “Lord, was I drunk, and I think there was something else in it. I could barely see straight, my heart felt like it was going to explode… Next thing, I wasn’t wearing a wolf, I was one. Really impressed them, me; according to the family story, they went wolfing in the dream, fought evil in the spirit world—only time a Benandante wolfed in his own body, serious evil was brewing he’d been chosen specially to fight.”

  “So the family tradition shaped your breakthrough. Do you…go all furry often?”

  “Hardly. The other night was the first time in a fight. But I’m damn tough and quick, hard to influence, which is why I got assigned to Emerson’s team. Some nights I go camping on private land, but I never lose control and slaughter horny teens.”

  “Good to know. So have you found the serious evil you’re supposed to fight?”

  He looked at me, eyes cold. “Pretty much this whole town, chèr. One more thing—I found Leroy. Competition fencing world is a small one, spent the day looking at team pictures of national leagues, me. He’s Canadian, from a little town outside Montreal. Don’t know yet why a Québécois is imitating a Frenchman. Be careful.”