CHAPTER TEN

Once upon a time, St. Charles Avenue had been an ode to architecture, a boulevard marked by one mansion after another, and the lead-in to a neighborhood of gentility and Southern wealth.

The Landreaus had owned one of those houses, the so-called Palm Tree House, which was as yellow as the cottage near Moses’s, had long porches, fancy columns, and dozens of palm trees. The family had refused to give up on or abandon New Orleans. Instead, they’d repaired the damage war had done to the house and lived there still—Gunnar, his parents, and his siblings. It was a testament to their love of New Orleans—and their absolute stubbornness.

It also occurred to me that every one of my friends was stubborn. Probably in part because it was the stubborn people who’d stayed.

Gavin parked on the otherwise empty street, and we took the cobblestone sidewalk to the front door. The house was dark but for the front room, which glowed with light.

He gave the brass door knocker a questioning look, then rapped it lightly.

Seconds later, the door was yanked open. And the man standing there—tall and handsome, with dark, rakish hair that fell over his forehead and teasing, intelligent brown eyes—opened his arms.

I ran past Gavin and into Gunnar’s arms.

“It’s been too long,” Gunnar said. He was tall enough to rest his head atop mine, and his arms were banded around me like I might fly away if he didn’t hold tight enough.

“Yeah, it has.” I reached up to knuckle away the only tear I’d let fall. “It’s good to see you.”

He brushed back my hair, pressed a kiss to my forehead. “It’s good to see you, too.” He looked up, offered nods to Gavin and Malachi, then glared at Liam.

“Well. Look who’s here.” If anything, Gunnar’s embrace tightened. “Let me guess—you pissed off everyone outside New Orleans, too, so you’ve come home again?”

“Landreau,” Gavin said, cutting off the argument. “We need to talk. Can we come in?”

“Just telling it like it is,” Gunnar said. He looked down at me, concern in his eyes. “But do come in. I actually have something for you,” he said, then released me to push open the door.

She sat on the couch, one leg tucked under the other, a binder in her lap. Her dark hair was curled now into tight ringlets that brushed her shoulders.

“What’s going—,” Tadji began, then looked up. Her brown eyes went wide with surprise. Then she made a half-scream sound before jumping up, dumping the binder on the floor, and running toward me, the flowy tank she’d paired with leggings and boots shimmering in the air like wings as she moved.

She yanked me into the house, then wrapped me in a fierce hug that almost broke the few ribs Gunnar hadn’t managed to crack. She squealed as we swayed back and forth—at least until she let me go and slapped me on the arm. Hard.

“Ow!” I exclaimed, rubbing it. “What was that for?”

“For showing yourself,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “You’re not supposed to be running around the Garden District.” But she pulled me into a hug again. “And I have missed the crap out of you.”

Then she pulled back again, slapped my other arm. “Why are you here?”

“Stop the cycle of violence,” Gunnar said, extending a hand between us. “Claire, Tadji’s glad to see you and concerned about seeing you.” He smiled at her. “That cover it?”

“It does.” But her eyes were narrow. “For now.”

“Good,” he said. “There’s water in the refrigerator, and the bar’s open,” he said, as the others filed inside. But no one moved for booze. Not when there was work to be done first.

He closed the door, then turned back to me, ran his hands up and down my arms. “And how are you?” he asked quietly.

“It’s been a long couple of days.”

Gunnar’s gaze found Liam. “I take it that’s how long he’s been in the universe again.”

I nodded, really glad to be back among my allies. “Pretty much.”

“He say anything about what happened? Why he left? Maybe groveling for mercy for leaving you behind?”

“Not yet.”

Gunnar nodded, looked at Liam. “Never fear, Claire-belle. If the way he looks at you is any indication, it’s on its way.”

“Where are your parents?” I asked, thinking the house seemed unusually quiet. “Your brother and sister?”

“They left after the battle,” he said. “Couldn’t stay in the Zone any longer.” He glanced back at the room, the fancy Southern décor, like he might be imagining them there, cooking or talking or laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and squeezed his hand.

He nodded. “I’m managing. I assume you want to talk about Broussard?” he asked as we moved to stand with the others.

“Among other things,” Gavin said. “Let’s sit down.”

Gunnar didn’t look thrilled about taking orders in his own home. But when Gavin took a seat on a yellow gingham sofa, Gunnar went to the windows and began lowering the shades.

“All right,” he said, when he’d secured our privacy. “Let’s talk.”

•   •   •

We joined Gavin on the couches in the living room. Or everyone but Liam did. He stood by the window, apart from the rest of us.

Gavin did the talking, telling Gunnar the parts of the story he hadn’t yet heard—from our trip to the bayou, to the bounty hunters, to the roadblock.

Gunnar didn’t speak until he looked at me. “You walked into the bayou?”

“Yes.”

“With gators and snakes?”

“Yep.”

“Should I be pissed you hiked around southern Louisiana even though the Containment heat’s been turned up? Or should I be proud you walked among gators and snakes?”

“Technically,” Gavin said, before I could answer, “we drove for part of it.”

Gunnar slid his gaze to Gavin. “This was your idea?”

“All due respect, since she was a trouper, Claire’s really not the focus of this particular story,” Gavin said. “We’re more concerned about Broussard and this very obvious frame job. And Icarus.”

“What’s Icarus?”

Gunnar’s expression was blank, and he looked genuinely confused. Which was probably what Gavin had been testing.

“The last file Broussard reviewed before he was killed. Assuming Containment’s telling the truth about his time of death.”

“I’m not going to ask how you know what files Broussard was looking at. But I don’t know what Icarus is, and I don’t have any more details about the murder than I did the last time we talked.” Gunnar looked at Liam. “I’m not involved in the investigation.”

“You’re second-in-command of Devil’s Isle,” I said. “How are you not involved?”

“Because you’ve been shut out,” Malachi guessed, and Gunnar nodded.

“He was killed outside Devil’s Isle, so his murder is technically outside our jurisdiction. Any normal day, that wouldn’t matter. But it seems to matter now, and to people at a higher pay grade than mine. Investigators have been assigned. I don’t have access to files, reports, or anything else. I’m shut out completely.”

“This the Commandant’s doing?” Gavin asked.

“Above his pay grade, too. I don’t know who’s pulling the strings, but it’s someone in the PCC, someone who ranks high enough to shut out the Commandant.” He looked at Liam. “Being that I’m the curious sort, I talked to one of those investigators, asked what he believes set you off—why you attacked Broussard when Gracie has been gone for nearly a year. He didn’t have a satisfactory answer; he’s just assuming you did it.”

“That’s a shitty investigation,” Gavin said.

“It is. I realize Containment isn’t perfect. But it’s usually minimally competent. That’s not what this is.”

“It’s bigger,” I said.

“Yeah. Let’s go back to Icarus. What is it?”

“We don’t know,” Gavin said. “Found a stub of a file that someone tried very diligently to erase.”

“And someone else, probably a Para with electronic skills, managed to dig out?” Gunnar asked.

“No comment,” Gavin said with a thin smile.

“And did this individual get anything of substance in that stub?”

“It looks like something scientific,” Gavin said, glancing at me. “But we don’t have enough information to figure out how or what it is.”

“You going to talk to Darby?”

“That’s the plan.”

Gunnar nodded. “That he looked at the file last could be just coincidence.”

“Could be,” Gavin said. “But it’s the lead we’ve got, so we’re following it through.”

“Who else knew Liam and Broussard didn’t like each other?” I asked. “Does that narrow it down?”

“It doesn’t,” Gunnar said, and looked over at Liam. “I assume you don’t disagree?”

“No,” Liam said. “He didn’t like me or trust me, and he wasn’t shy about sharing that with others.”

Gunnar furrowed his brow and nodded. “I can look into this Icarus deal quietly. Assuming it’s not personal nonsense he happened to store on our network, it could be a PCC project. If it is, it’s not one I’m privy to.”

“Is that unusual?” Liam asked.

“Not necessarily. We oversee operations in Devil’s Isle, Containment operations in the New Orleans quadrant. That’s a small slice of the PCC’s pie. But Broussard was one of our people. I’d know about anything he was working on.”

“And what was he working on?” Liam asked.

“Nothing unusual,” Gunnar said, meeting his gaze. “We’re more than a month past the battle and still processing the intel on Reveillon, working through the individuals we arrested. He’s been in on that. But Reveillon’s old news, according to Gavin’s report.”

Gavin nodded. “Sporadic discussion in the Zone. No action I could find.”

“Like I said, I’ll look into it. And I’ll let you know what I find.”

“There’s more,” I said, and looked at Malachi. “There are Paranormals at Vacherie. One’s sick, and one was sick but passed away. Both were friends of Malachi’s.”

“Man, I’m sorry,” Gunnar said.

Malachi nodded.

“What kind of illness?”

I described what we’d seen. “Does that ring any bells for you? Sound familiar? It’s unusual, and we want to make sure it’s not spreading.”

“I’m not aware of anything,” Gunnar said. “Lizzie would know better than me, since she’s at the clinic, but she’d have reported something unusual, and she didn’t. She did tell me she appreciated your package.”

That was something, anyway. “The Paras are being treated at the farm, because they think if they come into the clinic, they won’t be able to leave again.”

“That’s a possibility,” Gunnar agreed after a moment. “Based on the phrasing of the regulation.”

I nodded. “If you’ve got any extra medics, maybe you could send someone out to look at them?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Appreciate it,” Malachi said, and Gunnar gave him a nod.

“Go back for a minute,” Liam said. “What package did you give Lizzie?” He’d introduced me to her; she’d been his friend first.

“Goods for the clinic,” Gavin said. “Delta’s been busy in the last few weeks.”

“Gunnar arranged the logistics,” I explained. “Moses and I scavenge. Lizzie gets whatever we can find for the clinic, and we don’t get nabbed for dropping it off.”

“How do you do that?” Liam asked.

“Delivery entrance,” Gunnar said.

“Devil’s Isle doesn’t have a delivery entrance.”

“It does now,” Gunnar said with a smile. “The battle did some damage to the walls. We took the opportunity to do some upgrades.”

“They’re going to build a gym,” Malachi said. “For the residents.”

“A gym?” Gavin asked.

“Recreation facility,” Gunnar said, “for the kids who’ve been born in Devil’s Isle.”

“Innocent kids,” I said, and he nodded.

“Yeah. Kids who need an outlet.”

“How’d you get the taxpayers to foot the bill for that?” Liam asked.

Gunnar’s smile widened. “They didn’t. It will be built thanks to a very large donation from the Arsenault Foundation.”

Liam’s brows lifted in surprise. I guess Eleanor hadn’t told him about that, assuming she’d known. The decision could have been made by her friends in Washington.

“There’ve been a lot of changes while I’ve been gone.”

His words seemed to change the temperature of the room, putting a chill in the air.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have left,” Gunnar said. “You ready to talk about that? Because several of us have questions.”

“Many questions,” Tadji said. “And also some declarative sentences.”

Liam looked at me, the heat in his eyes sizzling enough to scorch. “I did what I had to do.”

“Which was?” Tadji prompted.

There was silence for a long time. And then he looked at me. “What was necessary.”

The pain in his eyes was clear enough, and the room went quiet. And so the mystery of Liam’s missing weeks still hung in the air.

“Have you been eating?”

I looked at Gunnar, and it took a moment for my brain to catch up with the abrupt shift. “What?”

His gaze narrowed. “You’ve lost weight you didn’t need to lose. I’m making you a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“I don’t need a grilled cheese sandwich.” Never mind that my weight was none of Gunnar’s business. But that didn’t stop him from playing big brother.

“Tough. I don’t need you out there on your own, forgetting to eat.”

“I don’t forget to eat.” I just didn’t care that much about it these days. Which, when you put it that way, made it sound like he was right. My jeans had felt a little looser.

Not taking my word for it, Gunnar rose to go into the kitchen.

“I guess we’re having grilled cheese,” Tadji said, then stood and took my hand. “Come on, Claire. Let’s get you fed.”

•   •   •

I could feed myself. And did, when I needed food. But the grilled cheese still hit the spot. So did the second one that I accepted after everyone else was satisfied. Gunnar felt better for having done it, and the bread and cheese laid a nice foundation for the alcohol.

We were having an impromptu reunion, after all. And now that the business was done, we decided to make the most of it.

Gunnar played tender at the built-in bar on the other side of the room. “What’s everyone drinking?”

He was answered by a chorus of requests.

“Excellent,” he said. “You get Sazeracs or you get nothing.”

“Claire makes a fantastic Sazerac,” Tadji said.

“Oh, I know,” Gunnar said with a grin as he added bitters to highball glasses. “Who do you think taught her how to do it?”

“I assumed she taught you,” Tadji said with a wink.

“The memory is somewhat hazy,” Gunnar said.

She grabbed the first two glasses he’d filled, then gestured toward the door.

“Claire and I are going to take a walk. You gentlemen do what you will.”

“Poker?” Gavin asked.

“You cheat,” Liam said.

“You just don’t like losing.” He glanced at Malachi speculatively. “You ever played poker?”

“I have not.”

Gavin’s grin said all we needed to know about how that was going to go.

Tadji said to me, “Let’s go into the orangery.”

“You just like saying ‘orangery.’”

“True. But mostly I like being in houses that have them.”

In that case she’d come to the right place.

•   •   •

The Landreau house was enormous—a late 1920s mansion with a lot of style.

The orangery was pretty much as described: an octagonal peninsula off the back of the house. Five orange trees in terra-cotta pots were blossoming in front of the windows, perfuming the air with floral and citrus scents.

The floor was covered in marble tile, and the ceiling was a cage of glass and steel. If you needed a break from sniffing orange blossoms, there were wicker couches and chairs with deep cushions, and small stone-and-metal tables with matching chairs.

We took seats on the couches. Tadji was already barefoot, and she tucked her feet beneath her as she sat.

“Now that we can talk,” she said, turning to face me, “what the hell is the story with Liam?”

“I don’t exactly know,” I finally said, and told her about our conversation in the garage.

“What do you think happened?”

“No idea. I assume it has something to do with his magic, and that it’s not good. But that’s based on the look in his eyes. He won’t talk about it, and I’m not going to fall at his feet just because he’s here.”

“Nor should you.” She thought for a minute, swirling the liquid in her glass, and nodded. “Ball’s in his court until he fesses up.”

“Agreed.” I took a drink.

It was potent, but layered with flavors. Complex, just like New Orleans. Gunnar did make a pretty good Sazerac.

“I heard about Burke,” I said. “Have you heard from him?”

Tadji and Burke, a former Delta member, had been progressing their relationship very slowly—at her request. But he’d been reassigned after the battle, shipped back to DC and PCC headquarters.

“He’s doing all right, as far as I can tell.”

“And how are you?”

She was quiet for a moment. “Do you believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“Evidence says yes.”

“Well,” she said, “then let’s just leave it at that.”

She was clearly eager to change the subject, so I shifted it back to my first love. “The store looks good.”

She looked at me, eyes wide with surprise. And then they narrowed with obvious anger. “What do you mean, ‘The store looks good’?”

“Which part are you unhappy about?”

“First of all, the store looks phenomenal,” she said, counting off on her fingers. “Second of all, you shouldn’t know that. You shouldn’t know anything about the store, because you’re supposed to be staying away from it.”

Perversely, the irritation in her voice made me feel better. If she was angry that I had seen her at the store, that meant she wasn’t angry that I hadn’t. She didn’t feel burdened by taking it over, or at least not enough to be angry at me over it. That lifted some of the psychic weight I’d been carrying around.

“I just wanted to check on things. How’s the dissertation?” I asked, trying to change the subject for my own benefit this time.

“Two more chapters done.”

I stared at her. “While running the store on your own? How are you doing that?”

Tadji grinned, pushed hair behind her ear. “Honey, I’m not doing it on my own. I’ve hired people. There’s money in the budget to do that now.”

Touché, I thought, with only a little shame that I hadn’t been able to get the store to that kind of profitability.

“And, it turns out, I really like being busy. It makes me more productive to have a tight schedule. It’s harder to make excuses when you know you have less time. So I made myself a schedule, and I work in the back office while Ezell—he’s one of my probationary hires—watches the store.”

“There isn’t a back office.”

She just looked at me, the same way Liam had looked at Gunnar when Gunnar told him about the delivery entry to Devil’s Isle.

“Damn, you’re good.”

“I know,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“How do things feel in the Quarter?” I’d missed seeing my regular customers, getting a feel for Containment by watching soldiers moving in and out of the neighborhood. Being in isolation was, well, isolating.

“There’s a weird mood,” she said, setting her drink on the coffee table.

“How so?”

She frowned, crossed her arms. “Before the battle, we’d gotten comfortable. Maybe not entirely comfortable with Devil’s Isle, but we’d gotten used to the way things were.”

I nodded. We’d learned to survive during the war. When it was over, it had taken time for us to accept that we were safe, that a battalion of Valkyries wasn’t heading for the city, golden weapons at the ready. But we’d made new lives, begun to accept our new world.

“Since the battle,” she continued, “it’s like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. For another battle to begin. People look over their shoulders a lot more, wondering if there are more Reveillon members out there.

“But at the same time,” she said, “there’s a new kind of camaraderie because we fought together. Citizens and soldiers and Paras. We hold coffee klatch on Thursday nights. Someone brings coffee, someone brings a snack, I bring the room and the electricity. And we talk. We’re honest. That’s a pretty big change.”

“It’s good,” I agreed. “It’s very good.” I thought of Broussard and the apparent frame job. If anyone knew the word on the streets of New Orleans, it was the woman who ran Royal Mercantile.

And I felt a little pang that I wasn’t that woman right now.

“What are you hearing about Containment?”

She glanced back at the doorway, checking that we had privacy. “Nothing about Icarus. If that’s part of this. I haven’t heard the word since my last myth and mythology class.”

“If you hear anything specific, let me know.”

“I will.” She crossed her legs. “What have you been doing since the battle? Other than delivering goods to the clinic and occasionally spying on my store?”

That was pretty much it. Like everyone else in the Zone, I’d been surviving. There wasn’t much to say beyond that. But I told her what there was to tell.

“And how is Moses?” she asked with a grin.

“Grouchy.”

“So about the same.”

“Pretty much.”

She paused. “What are you going to do about Liam?”

“I don’t know. I guess just see where it goes.”

She patted my leg. “You look exhausted, and you’ve had a helluva day. You’ll get some sleep, let it simmer, and have a clearer outlook.”

I hoped she was right. Because right now things were pretty damn murky.