Elysian Fields (3 page)

“I do care.” He was calling me out. “I just realized I’d been asking you to be someone you aren’t. I’m sorry it took me so long to see that. It wasn’t fair.”

His smile was cold. “So you think we can be friends?”

We’d have to start from scratch, but we could do it. “I know we can.”

He slid his chair around the table until it was next to mine, and I stifled the impulse to put more distance between us. “What about more than friends?”

How much truth-telling did I want? An image came to me unbidden: Jake’s wolf standing over me on that pier last month in his wolf form, teeth bared. “I—”

“Don’t bother to answer the question, sunshine. I can feel your heart speed up without touching you—did you know that? And it’s not speeding up because you want me. It’s because you’re afraid of me. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

Probably not very good, but how could I make myself
not
fear him? How could I slow my heart rate or the rush of adrenaline into my muscles? “No,” I whispered.

He leaned closer, close enough for his body heat to mingle with mine. “Your fear excites me. It makes the wolf want to come out and play.”

With some effort, I forced myself to look him in the eye. I’d always insisted to Alex that Jake would never hurt me, but a few grains of sand had been falling from the hourglass of doubt for a few weeks. Now they’d sped to a fast trickle. Jake wouldn’t hurt me intentionally, but Jake wasn’t always in control.

He leaned back in his chair, his point made. “Well, at least you’re not looking at me with that
poor-bastard-what-are-we-gonnado-about-Jake
expression. I’m sick of seeing it, from you and Alex both. You want to know why I drink? It’s because of that look. I’d rather see fear on your faces than pity, and the more I drink the less I care.”

My own anger sparked. We might have screwed up, but we’d been trying to help him. “Then tell us how to do better. Help
me
do better. What do you need from us?”

He rested a hand on my forearm and squeezed a little tighter than necessary. “I don’t need a goddamned thing from either one of you. Just leave me alone and stop watching every move I make.” He looked at me with yellow-gold eyes that had an odd, flat refraction. Wolf eyes. His nostrils flared as he inched closer.

Jake was about to lose control, and I didn’t want to be alone with him anymore. He was scaring the hell out of me, and the wolf part of him liked it.

Tamping down a surge of panic, I pushed my chair back but his hand remained clamped to my arm as if glued. I tried to slow my galloping pulse without success as he slid his chair even closer.

Pulling my arm to his face, Jake inhaled deeply. “Your heart is pounding so hard, it vibrates through my whole body. I can almost taste it.” His voice was a rough whisper against my skin.

“Jake, stop it. I’ve got to go.” I stood and tried to tug my arm away, but he gripped it harder and stood as well, pulling me against him and sending a sharp stab of pain through my ribcage.

“What’s wrong, DJ? You scared?” His words, carried on hot breath sweet with whiskey, tickled across my cheek. Jake’s eyes were completely gone now, replaced by something cold and alien. “You should be.”

Damn it, the wolf was in control. I couldn’t read any emotions but anger and aggression. “Let me go. Now.” Panic surged through my system and I couldn’t stop the overflow of magic that shot from the fingers of the free hand I had pressed against his chest.

He jerked away with an inhuman snarl and a nip at my forearm still clutched in his grip. A burn raced across it as I jerked it away.

We stilled, the moment carved in ice as we both looked at my arm. He’d broken skin. A small scratch, three or four inches long with a deeper jag at the end. Not serious enough to need stitches, but deep enough for the blood to well up and start a slow drip onto the scuffed hardwood floor of the bar.

Deep enough for a little of the virulent loup-garou DNA to mingle with my own.

Deep enough to change my life forever.

Jake took a step backward.

“I’m fine.” I grabbed a napkin from the table and dabbed at the wound with trembling fingers.

Jake hadn’t spoken. When I looked up, his eyes were wide, his gaze fixed on my arm. Terror and arousal roiled inside him as Jake tried to regain control. The wolf wanted to feast, and the man wanted to flee.

“It’s all right.” I pressed the napkin against the cut, as much to get the blood out of his sight as to stanch the flow. My voice quavered. “No big deal. Just a little scratch.”

“I . . . God.” Jake shuddered and backed away.

He whirled and walked behind the bar, pulled a pistol from beneath it, and stuck it in the waistband of his jeans, underneath his sweater. I could see his hands shaking from across the room.

He paused to stare at me one long, soul-cracking second, his eyes gone back to amber and filled with unspoken regret, before walking out the front door and slamming it behind him.

Jake’s footsteps were absorbed into the daily noise of Bourbon Street, and I was alone.

T
he crack in the plaster ceiling began next to the base of the light fixture and zigzagged a path to the corner of the room. I studied the lightning-bolt pattern, wondering how much pressure would be needed before the crack became a crevice and the whole ceiling came tumbling down on some unsuspecting fool’s head.

I had no idea how long I’d lain on the bed in the vacant apartment across from Jake’s on the second floor of the Green Gator, staring at the potential ceiling disaster hanging overhead. The symbolism didn’t escape me.

Finally, I rolled to my feet, clutched my ribs, and walked to the bathroom with Jake’s bottle of Four Roses that I’d brought upstairs. I took a sip, coughed at the burn, and took another. Then I walked to the sink, used the rest of the bourbon to clean the scratch on my arm, and tossed the empty bottle in the trash.

Alcohol wouldn’t kill the virulent loup-garou strain of lycanthropy, but the pain it caused on the open wound awoke my brain from its fugue. No point in freaking out; too many variables were unknown. When I had answers, I’d panic.

I had no idea if a wizard had ever become loup-garou. As a natural shapeshifter, Alex was immune—he’d been attacked by the same loup- garou as Jake. Ditto for Jean Lafitte. If shapeshifters and the historical undead were immune, perhaps wizards were too. Or maybe my elven DNA would protect me.

Otherwise . . . Otherwise was a horror show. How would it feel to change form? Would the Elders consider me too dangerous to live if I shifted into an uncontrollable wolf who could do magic?

They’d taken a chance on Jake because he’d been human when he was turned—and because Alex pled his case and agreed to be held responsible for his cousin’s actions. Jake didn’t know that. Take my elven skills, which already made the Elders nervous, and make me a rogue wolf who could absorb the negative emotions of others? They’d either turn me into a weapon or put me down like a rabid stray.

Part of me was worried about Jake. Part of me cared where he’d gone and how this would tear him apart. Part of me was concerned that he was probably driving around drunk and upset. On some level I made note of those things, but mostly I felt all my fretting over Jake the last few years had been wasted time. We’d still come to this.

Leyla wouldn’t arrive for at least another half hour, and I didn’t want to explain why I was here and Jake wasn’t. She was used to opening up, so I put the key to the apartment back under Jake’s mat, left her a note that Jake might not be coming in, made sure the front door of the bar was locked, wrapped a clean towel around my arm, and exited the back, which had a door that would lock behind me. A tiny courtyard served mostly to store big green trash cans on wheels and give delivery drivers a way to get to the kitchen without having to walk through the bar.

The long, narrow alley between the Gator and the adjacent building could induce claustrophobia on the best of days. By the time I emerged into the gloom of the open street, hyperventilation was imminent. I walked to where I’d parked my SUV around the corner from the Gator and drove home on autopilot, my thoughts a swirl of blood-covered axes and loup- garou scenarios.

Two vehicles were parked behind my house in the small lot I shared with my new neighbor: a spotless black Mercedes convertible and a big, beefy black Range Rover. Alex, who was now a two-vehicle house hold all by himself, had moved into the little green shotgun next door to me last month.

Jake wasn’t the only chicken in town; I wasn’t ready to face Alex.

Instead, I eased my Pathfinder’s door shut with a soft click and hurried to my back entrance. Sebastian, the chocolate Siamese I’d inherited from my father, lay in wait, ready to trip me when I walked inside. It was his hobby. When I stopped and leaned over to pet him, he meowed at me suspiciously and streaked out of the kitchen.

Nothing like an affectionate, welcoming pet to make a girl feel loved.

Upstairs, I cleaned the small cut again and wrapped it in a bandage, reflecting on the overflowing medicine cabinet in my bathroom. Before Hurricane Katrina had turned New Orleans into what was arguably the world’s most active prete hotspot, I’d never taken so much as an aspirin or had a sprained ankle. Now I had tape for my ribs, glue and ban dages for cuts, instant ice packs, painkillers . . . and the borders between the modern city and the Beyond had officially been down only a few weeks.

The cut burned and throbbed, and I could imagine my body beginning to change in an explosion of morphing cells and re- spooling DNA. This tiny wound should already be covered with a Band- Aid and forgotten, but instead my arm felt heavy and alien. How much was mental, and how much physical? There were no answers, only an avalanche of questions.

I stretched out on my bed, curling up under my grandmother’s old-fashioned patchwork quilt that doubled as my bedspread, the elven staff in its usual spot poking out of a deep vase on my nightstand. Some people slept with teddy bears or pets. I had Charlie, an ancient stick of wood the elves called Mahout.

My muscles ached from the stress of being up all night, the crime scene, and the disaster with Jake. I needed sleep, but my brain writhed with useless what- ifs.

What if I’d walked out when Jake became argumentative? That might make me a bad friend, but it would have been a smarter thing to do. Why did I have to try and
fi x
everything?

What if I’d come home and simply reported Jake’s drinking to Alex, letting him deal with the situation? He loved Jake, no matter how much they fought. But Alex saw life in black and white, and Jake’s current world was painted in shades of gray. I found it comfortable living in a world without absolutes, but it drove Alex crazy. I’d have done neither of them any favors by ratting on Jake without first trying to help.

What if I shifted at the next full moon? The thought filled me with terror, but I had to confront it. I rolled over and dug my cell phone out of my pocket, clicking on a browser app and finding a November lunar calendar.

Life as I knew it could be over in ten days. Happy Thanksgiving.

***

In my dream, a man called my name, softly at first, then in a shout. He needed a big serving of shut-the-hell-up.

I cracked one eye open, discerning a bear-shaped hulk standing in my bedroom door. The elven staff was in my hand and pointed toward the bear without my realizing I’d grabbed it.

“DJ, put the staff down.” The bear spoke in Alex Warin’s deep baritone.

Groaning, I sat up and rubbed my eyes with my non-staff- wielding hand. Even my freaking eyeballs hurt. Then the horror came back to me.
What the hell was I going to do?

As soon as I stuck the staff back in its holder—a vase that had begun its life in the late 1800s as a pattern glass celery dish— Alex stepped inside the room and glanced around. Seeing nothing amiss, he walked to the bed and looked down at me, a suspicious frown etching a little worry line between his eyebrows. His unkempt dark hair—always on the shaggy side—made me suspect he’d gotten home late and just rolled out of bed himself. He had the makings of a scruffy midday shadow, which pushed my sexy-as-hell buttons.

He pinned me with a decidedly unsexy glare. “Well?”

Loaded question. He looked like a man who’d arrived here with a purpose, but surely the need for an update on a crime scene wouldn’t have put that intense look on his face. “What’s up? I was sleeping. How’s Denis Villere?”

Denis was the most cantankerous merman I’d ever met, and he liked me almost as well as I liked him, which was not at all. As punishment for causing part of last month’s merman drama, his clan had been consigned by the Elders to an isolated corner of the Atchafalaya Basin. They were already stirring up problems with the local weregators.

“Denis sends his love.” Alex sat on the edge of my bed. “But I’m not here about that. Jake called.”

Oookay.
Time to tread carefully. “What did he say, exactly?”

“Not a damned thing. ‘DJ needs you at the Gator.’ Nothing more, and then he hung up on me. I get to the Gator and Leyla says you left a note for her saying Jake might not be in.”

Alex stretched across the bed, propped on one elbow. Those long-lashed eyes that could simmer like melted chocolate and turn me into mush—not that I’d admit it to him—hardened into squinty orbs as he gave me a once-over.

I kept the hem of my left sleeve grasped firmly in my fist and under the quilt. “Like what you see?”

He reached out and put a hand on my left shoulder. The warmth of his skin seeped through my thin sweater. At six-three and at least 240 pounds of solid muscle, he had ample body heat to share even without his shapeshifter genes.

I could pretend he was getting romantic, but I knew better. He was trying to intimidate me, and it wouldn’t work. Alex wasn’t going to find this scratch on my arm until I figured out how and what to tell him. I wouldn’t lie, but truth can be couched in all kinds of creativity.

Faster than I could track his movement, he slid his hand from my shoulder to my left wrist and jerked my arm from beneath the quilt.