Bad Boy Prince: A British Royal Stepbrother Romance (21 page)

“You must bond to each other through the stone, give it life,” Mere Marie said. She pulled out a tiny, wicked-looking blade, every inch of it etched with foreign words. “Through blood.”

“Of course,” Gabriel muttered.

Rhys reached out for the knife and Mere Marie handed it over. He sliced his palm, ignoring the bite of pain. Thrusting his hand out, he let his blood drip onto the letters carved in the stone. They flared with a soft burst of light, but only for a moment.

Gabriel took the knife next, mimicking Rhys’s actions. This time, the stone flared a little brighter, a little longer.

Aeric was last, and when his blood hit the stone, the burst of light was nearly blinding. Mere Marie didn’t share her blood, but she did close her eyes and recite an incantation. Rhys felt the cut on his palm throb, and for a moment he was transported.

He was outside himself. He was the stone. He felt three presences, felt the warmth of their blood. He considered their offering, testing their strength. Yes, they would do. They could withstand his power.

Rhys snapped back into himself just in time for a brilliant wave of light to pulse from the stone, pulling at some part deep inside him. In the moments before he fainted, his only thought was this:

How well could an adventure possibly end if it began with losing all consciousness and control of himself?

He could only wait and see, for at the present everything went dark, and Rhys Macaulay knew no more.

D
ominic “Pere Mal
” Malveaux leaned his elbows on the flimsy rooftop railing on the Hotel Monteleone. He squinted against the glare of the mid-morning spring sun as he scanned the New Orleans skyline. Anytime he needed to think, he left his lavish set of rooms on the Monteleone’s topmost floor and came up to the pool deck. It afforded him peace and quiet, away from his many underlings and their ceaseless ineptitude. It also afforded a stunning view of the rest of the city and the Mississippi river.

Today the view was spectacular as ever, but his enjoyment was dampened by an unfamiliar sensation. Uncertainty, perhaps. He was so close to unraveling the age-old secret that voodoo priest Baron Samedi left behind. A riddle, of a sort, meant to reveal the secret of the Seven Gates. The quickest way to peel away the Veil, that thin barrier between this world and the next. The shortest route to the realm of the spirits, and a place that Pere Mal very much needed to access.

Combining his own illustrious power with that of the spirits of his fearsome ancestors would be a coup. Pere Mal was strong now, but once he destroyed the Veil and brought the two worlds together, he would be unstoppable. Le Medcin, that nosy, menacing bastard, would crumble at Pere Mal’s feet. People were naive, thinking Le Medcin’s lies about representing some greater force were true. Pere Mal had believed that too, once.

Now, though… Pere Mal knew that Le Medcin was a lying snake. Pere Mal would bring him down, hard. Right after he brought that would-be priestess to her knees.

Pere Mal’s fists clenched at the very thought of Mere Marie, as she styled herself these days. That uppity bitch. She was nothing when Pere Mal first found her, blindly following the principles of voodoo with no true understanding, no appreciation for the art of balancing light and dark magic. Without “Uncle Dominic” showing her the way, where would little Marie be now?

“Boss.”

Pere Mal turned to see his right-hand man Landry striding across the pristine patio, looking annoyed. Landry was Pere Mal’s physical opposite, making them an interesting pair. Landry was short, under five and a half feet. His skin had a unique pallor, so that despite his obvious African American heritage, he was nearly pale as a sheet. He also wore ill-fitting, boxy suits; if Pere Mal didn’t demand his work attire be appropriate, no doubt Landry would only ever wear basketball shorts and sneakers with a ratty Saints jersey. Next to tall, caramel skinned, tuxedoed Pere Mal’s old-world grace, Landry looked like exactly what he was: a weaselly subordinate who handled the dirty work, jumping to meet Pere Mal’s commands.

“Landry,” Pere Mal said, giving his employee a scathing glance that slowed Landry’s steps from rushed to hesitant. “I thought we had an understanding about what happens when I’m up here on the roof.”

Landry’s lips tugged downward, but he advanced anyway.

“Yes, Monsieur,” Landry said, his French butchered by his low-class American accent. Of course, Pere Mal supposed that not everyone could speak in Haitian-Creole accents such as Pere Mal and his once-protégée Mere Marie did.

“And yet,” Pere Mal said, glancing down at Landry over the broad bridge of his nose, “here you are.”

“We found the witch. Maybe. I think,” Landry said, stopping a few feet away from where Pere Mal leaned against the railing. Landry shifted in place a few times, fidgeting under Pere Mal’s gaze. “I figured you’d want to know right away.”

“Let’s go inside,” Pere Mal said, pushing off the railing and striding inside. “I don’t want to start a precedent, have you thinking you can intrude on my thoughts whenever you like.”

“Sir,” Landry said with a relieved nod.

They traced Landry’s path back inside, Pere Mal leading the way to set of plush sofas tucked away in a tiny bar area. On weekends, the wood-paneled, high-end bar was bustling and loud; just now, it was silent and empty. Perfect for the conversation to come.

“Alright. Tell me what you’ve found,” Pere Mal said, settling himself on the largest couch. Landry took the love seat next to it, nervously fiddling with the hideous green tie he wore.

“Hang on a second,” Landry said. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he bellowed, “Amos! Amos, bring the girl!”

Landry had a bit of a smirk on his lips as one of his lookalike underlings dragged a scrawny teenaged girl in the room. The girl’s skin was caramel cream, a perfect Creole mix, and she wore a skintight electric blue dress that made her honey-colored eyes stand out. Currently those eyes were filled with tears, her long hair mussed, her face showing fear and fury in equal measure.

Pere Mal found her beauty compelling, but her tears repulsed him. If he wanted humanity, he would never have become a voodoo priest of such stature, never have learned all the ancient secrets, never recited the words that left his human self behind and immortalized his soul. The farther he got from his mortal beginnings, the more humans and their petty emotions disgusted him. The girl’s tears, the self-satisfied gleam in Landry’s eyes… Pere Mal repressed a bored sigh.

“Found her dancing at at a club on Bourbon street. She’s got a big mouth, telling me how she can read energies, how her mother runs a booth at Le Marché,” Amos grunted. He turned his gaze to the girl, giving her a sharp shake. “Tell him about the lady your mom sees at Le Marché.”

“I ain’t helping you,” the girl sneered. “You been dragging me all over the city. I don’t think you’re even gonna pay for all them private dances.”

Landry cleared his throat.

“Right this second, my guys are putting your ma in the back of a van,” he told the young woman. “You and your ma are gonna help us find this witch, or I’ll kill you both.”

The young woman’s mouth opened and closed several times, gawping like a fish out of water.

“Andrea,” Amos said, jerking her arm again. “Start talking.”

“S-she… My momma said this white girl comes into her shop all the time, looking for stuff to, like… make her magic less strong or whatever. The lady sees ghosts, I guess. My momma said the lady passed on a message from my uncle, once.”

“Can she do anything else?” Pere Mal asked, curious.

“I dunno,” Andrea said, her lip curling. “I wasn’t even there. Momma just said that the lady is a fool to be walking around unprotected like that. She’s real powerful and shit.”

“What’s the woman’s name?” Pere Mal asked, ignoring the girl’s attitude.

“Echo something. Echo…” Andrea screwed up her face, thinking. “Cabba-something. I can’t remember, exactly. Caballero?”

“And how does she dampen her power?” Pere Mal pressed.

“Witch’s Cloak,” Amos cut in, seeming confident. “You make a tea, it’s real nasty. But it works. Kills your power, makes you invisible to other Kith.”

Pere Mal narrowed his gaze, wondering how this flunky knew about herbalism. He let it go, not interested enough to ask.

“Alright. Go on,” he said, waving a hand at the girl.

“What about my momma?” she asked, her voice rising.

“You’ll have her back in a few hours, unharmed. She’s going to help us find the witch,” Pere Mal sighed.

“Medium,” Amos corrected. Pere Mal gave him a startled glance that quickly turned to an angry glare, and Amos beat feet, dragging the girl with him.

Pere Mal paced to a large window and studied the skyline as he pieced together his plan.

“Have the mother scry for the witch,” Pere Mal ordered. “Get her name, too. Track her down and follow her until she’s somewhere quiet. I want her by sundown tomorrow.”

“Where should I take her?” Landry asked.

None of Pere Mal’s business was conducted here at the Hotel Monteleone. He considered the Hotel his home away from home, and wouldn’t risk the comfort of his personal suite, even over something as important as finding the girl. Just thinking of being face-to-face with the first of the Three Lights made Pere Mal’s lips curl up in the semblance of a smile.

After a moment of consideration, Pere Mal replied, “The Prytania House. Make sure one of the witches wards the room to dampen the girl’s presence and keep her from escaping.”

“Yes, Monsieur,” Landry agreed. He started to turn away.

“Landry,” Pere Mal said, making Landry pause.

“Yes, sir?”

Pere Mal rooted Landry with a heavy gaze.

“This is important. Do it personally. There can be no mistakes,” Pere Mal told him.

Landry visibly swallowed, then gave a jerky nod.

“Yes, sir.”

Pere Mal turned away, dismissing Landry. His heart filled with something strangely close to joy. In only a handful of hours, he’d have the witch in his possession. She was the first key to discovering Baron Samedi’s secrets, to tearing the Veil asunder.

Pere Mal couldn’t help rubbing his hands together with gleeful anticipation.

Soon
.

“
I
t's not
that I don’t understand,” Echo said with a sigh, rolling her eyes to the right to look at the hazy apparition of a teenaged Creole boy that floated alongside her with an anxious expression.

“But Mistress,” the ghost said, wringing his hands, “Don’t you think people should know? The whole city is in danger!”

Echo hesitated, unsure how to respond. The problem with talking to young Aldous was that, like most ghosts, they had no context. Once a spirit passed beyond the Veil and into the next world, they no longer felt the passage of time. Nor were they aware that the world had moved on without them. Spirits appeared in the human realm because something anchored them there, keeping them from moving on to whatever lay ahead for them.

Thus anchored, spirits existed as a fragment of memory, a tiny piece of a human soul suspended in time, acting on the only information and understanding that they had: the exact circumstances from the moment of their death.

It didn’t make them great company, in Echo’s opinion. Especially when, like Aldous, the ghost happened to be a one-time New Orleans civil engineer whose entire attention was focused on the flood that would, and did, greatly reduce the population… in 1908.

“Aldous, if I promise to go to City Hall today and talk to the mayor himself, will you let me go about my business?” Echo asked.

Aldous gave her a grave and ghostly nod before flickering out of existence. Echo blew out a breath as she entered the Faubourg Marigny, looking for the right spot to enter The Gray Market. Sometimes known as Le Bon Marche or the Voodoo Market, The Gray Market was a broad network of businesses catering to the practitioners of various kinds of magic and any other Kith that needed… well, anything, really.

The trick to entering the gray market was that at any given time there were between a dozen and a hundred entrances and exits, each one corresponding to a unique and often random location in the gray market. The market was something like a pie pan filled with pearls, each connected to its neighbors by a labyrinthine series of connected strands. The pearls consisted of spell book shops, herbalist dispensaries, exotic brothels, and every other manner of dark, dusty, unnerving house of acquisition.

The entrances and exits of the gray market were cleverly hidden in plain sight. Some were actual doorways one walked through, appearing to lead into a house or bar. A human would pass through into the grocery store or apartment lobby, while a member of the Kith would puzzle our and speak aloud the portal’s unique pass phrase, allowing them access to the Market.

Echo wandered down Chartres Street, looking for nothing and something at the same time. That was to say, she wasn’t looking for something in particular, but instead for something that was a bit off or out of place, a hint of magic floating around…

Echo spotted a pristine Bell South phone booth tucked beside a crumbling “shotgun” style home, its rooms laid out in a straight line so that one could see from the front door straight to the back yard. Since it was 2015, Echo was assuming that new phone booths weren’t exactly sitting on every street corner these days. She jogged over to it and slid the door open, swallowing the lump in her throat as she stepped inside.

She slid effortlessly into the gray market, stepping from the phone booth into a dingy alleyway. She looked around and walked down the passage to find herself on one of the market’s main thoroughfares, in the Carré Rouge. This section of the Market was always magically moonlit, as it catered mainly to vampires looking for blood banks, live donors, or brothels… or some combination thereof. The rest of the Market seemed lit by some kind of dim early morning light from an indeterminate source, but in the Carré Rouge it was even darker.

And creepier, in Echo’s opinion.

Echo shivered and beat feet out of the Carré Rouge, holding her breath until she stepped into the main area of The Market. A melee of sights, sounds, and smells assaulted Echo’s senses as she stopped to take in the vast Market. There were perhaps three hundred stalls set up in the main market, crammed into uneven rows. These vendors sold the smaller items, everything from candied apples charmed with love spells to inexpensive pre-made potions to cheap wands and fortunetellers' mirror balls. The main market dealt in trinkets; more advanced practitioners sought their goods beyond the stalls, in the dozen or so blocks of private shops.

Echo skirted the stalls altogether and headed for the far side of the Market, taking in the sights as she walked to Robichaux’s Herbs and Potions. It was quiet in the Market. Early morning in the human world meant that many Kith were asleep, avoiding sunlight or just recovering after keeping late hours. The Market was busiest after midnight, so many shops and stalls didn’t even open until noon or later.

She pushed open the front door, smiling at the familiar tinkle of the bell that alerted Miss Natalie to the presence of visitors. Echo was surprised to find the shop empty; she’d never once stepped into the shop without finding the aged herbalist waiting with a smile and some fresh Kith gossip.

Echo closed the door and looked at the empty desk for a minute, then shrugged. The register desk sat in the middle back of the store, flanked on each side by three towering rows of white wood bookshelves. Each aisle held shelves of plants grouped by family and purpose, the living specimens growing under curved glass bell jars, the dried and powdered products in bottles of every manner and shape. Though the collection was a little overwhelming, the containers were neatly labeled and organized.

Echo found what she was looking for right away, unscrewing the lid of a mason jar and using the tongs inside to pick up a few leaves, then dropping the leaves in a small plastic bag she’d brought in her purse. The leaves she purchased here went bad after less than a week, so she made this trip quite frequently.

“Can I help you, miss?”

Echo Caballero whirled and nearly knocked over several containers on the opposite shelf, all of which seem to contain various types of dried frogs and newts. She cocked her head and looked at the man standing at the end of the aisle, blocking her exit. He looked entirely out of place; for one thing, he was wearing a boxy, dark suit. Not exactly common attire for the sorcerers, priestesses, and Kith vendors that frequented The Gray Market. Beyond that, the man wasn’t Natalie Robichaux, the proprietress of this shop.

“Uhhh, just looking for some Witch’s Cloak,” Echo said, her brow furrowing. She held up the baggie to show that she’d found it.

“Right, right,” the man said. He took a step toward her with a thoughtful look on his face, hands behind his back.

“Where’s Miss Natalie?” Echo asked, her mouth going dry. Something wasn’t right here.

“She stepped out,” the man said without missing a beat. “I’m Amos, her… nephew.”

Echo kept her expression blank, but she wanted to laugh. Miss Natalie was Congolese, her skin dark as the midnight sky. This man’s accent was local, his skin olive-complected but certainly Caucasian. There was very little chance that he was related to Miss Natalie by blood.

Still she hesitated, not wanting to jump to conclusions and put her foot in her mouth.

“I see. Can you ring up my purchase, then? I need to be going,” Echo said.

“Of course,” he said, backing up a few steps and gesturing with one hand for Echo to pass him.

Echo’s heart leapt into her chest as a pale figure flickered to life beside the strange man, a very young former slave girl who Echo had encountered in the shop before. Ada was the girl’s name, if Echo remembered correctly. It had been some time since Ada had last appeared to her. Ada shook her head with displeasure, her dark braids dancing at the movement. She fisted her hands on her hips and gave Echo a stern look.

“Bad, bad man,” Ada said, sliding her eyes to the left to look at the stranger. “He take money. He ain’t no nephew o’ nobody, ma’am.”

Echo bit her lip. The stranger shot her an impatient glance, unaware of the ghost right beside him. This was a perfect example of Echo’s whole life, listening to things most people couldn’t hear, looking like a crazy person. Usually the ghosts weren’t trying to save Echo’s life, though. Usually they were trying to talk to her about their long-dead relatives as she rode the streetcar, or asking her to look after their also-dead pets while she was working her retail job in the French Quarter, a line of impatient customers trailing halfway out the door.

“On second thought…” Echo said. “Do you think you could take me over to the, uh… wolfsbane? On the other side? I need it for a spell, but I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

Echo pointed, praying that the guy wouldn’t pick up on her lie. He paused, then shrugged. He turned and moved toward the other side of the shop, and Echo bolted, dropping the baggie of herbs as she ran.

She was out the door before the man realized she’d made a run for it, but he was on her trail in a heartbeat.

“Help!” Echo shouted, her cry bouncing off the mostly-silent street.

One grizzled old woman turned to watch, her dark cloak billowing as she leaned forward on her cane, almost doubling over. The crone produced a silver wand from her coat, but it was too late. The suited stranger grabbed Echo’s elbow and jerked her off the street into another alley, and straight into a closed door.

But it wasn’t a door, of course. It was simply one of the Market’s many surprise exits, and Echo’s attacker shoved her through the portal and into the bright New Orleans sun. She whipped her head around and found herself on the front stoop of a melon-colored shotgun house. Her attacker followed, and Echo ran down the steps, looking desperately about for some kind of help.

Across the street, three massive men were running flat-out toward her. Her brain took in small pieces of the scene, fitting them together slowly: a surly-looking blond man, a dark-haired guy with a concerned grimace on his face, the fact that all three men had weapons. Not just weapons, but guns
and
swords. In fact, they were also dressed in tactical gear like some kind of SWAT team.

Echo’s mind stumbled over that bit, and she noticed that the final man was reaching for his sword. Only then did she look at him, focus on him alone. Chestnut hair, a striking red beard, broad shoulders, and…

God, those had to be greenest eyes in the world. Vivid as a jungle canopy, bright as emerald fire, those eyes were boring into hers. Her brain short-circuited, blindsided by the sensation of
connection
, overcome by the desire to be
closer
…

When her brain gave out, so did Echo’s feet. Her pursuer, the dark-suited man she’d instantly forgotten, caught her in the next second. He threw his arms around her from behind, squeezing her tightly, and then the whole world blinked out of existence.

“What the hell…” Echo muttered to herself. Her attacker pushed her away, and she had a moment to take in her surroundings.

She stood on an impossibly remote black sand beach, staring down a quarter of uninterrupted coastline. It looked like a Hawaiian beach she’d once seen on the National Geographic channel, but the air here was cool. Damp and salty, but distinctly lacking in warmth. Echo looked up and found that there was no sun in the sky, only a vague sense of light coming from above. Typical in Kith constructs, just like the murky twilight of The Market.

So this was some kind of bolt-hole, a hiding place formed from a pocket between the worlds, somewhere and nowhere at once. She’d heard of them, but never visited one.

The sound of a gun being cocked made her wince. Echo swallowed and turned her head to look at her attacker, who was breathing heavily and looking quite annoyed.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“Shut up. Give me your purse,” he said, beckoning. “You don’t have any more of that herb shit, do you?”

Echo frowned and handed over her purse, feeling sick to her stomach as she watched him root through it. He confiscated her Swiss army knife and examined the aged hand mirror Echo carried around, perhaps catching a whiff of magic on the mirror. He eyed her once more and dropped the mirror back in her purse, then tossed it to the ground a few feet away.

“You might as well get comfortable,” he said. “It might be a while.”

“What might be a while?” Echo asked, her frustration growing even as her pulse pounded.

“You’ll see.”

They stood on the beach for what felt like ages, Echo looking around at the strange simulated scenery to allay her boredom and tension. Just when she thought she might be on the island eternally, a pair of suited men came into her line of vision with a distinct
pop
. One was almost identical to her attacker, same black suit and pasty features. The other, though…

The other man was enormous, seven feet tall if he was an inch. He had stately Hispanic coloring, caramel skin and dark hair, coupled with a chilling white grin. He wore a perfectly tailored tuxedo, which suited his immense stature. He turned his gaze on her, and her mouth dropped open when she saw that his eyes were orange.

Not like, hazel with warm tones. Straight up orange, like two balls of fire floating where his eyeballs should be. Echo felt the sudden urge to flee and vomit at the same time, but her idiot brain wouldn’t do anything about it.

“Boss,” her attacker said, turning his attention to the new arrivals.

Echo sort of blanked out for a moment, letting her panic take over. Her hand flew out to knock the gun from her assailant’s hand, startling the group. She flung herself at her purse, managing to flatten herself over the bag while digging the hand mirror out.

“Return,” she whispered as she pressed her fingers to the mirror’s surface, closing her eyes.

For several long beats, she couldn’t bear to look. She rarely used spells of any kind. Rarely used any magic, in truth. It was very possible that her uttered plea hadn’t done anything at all.

She shifted, and noticed that she no longer lay on sand. In fact, she was standing upright, and the sultry air clinging to her skin suggested that she was back in New Orleans. Letting her eyes drift open, she came face to face with the same man she’d noticed earlier, her eyes locking with that endless emerald sea…