CHAPTER FOUR
Remy pulled up to my street in the French Quarter and slowly cruised along until he reached my gate. The high-beams on his car illuminated the back of the Harley parked in my front yard and the man sitting next to it. When Jared saw us, he swung his leg off the bike, pocketing his phone before patting his leather jacket down and walking toward the gate.
“I see you’ll be taken care of,” Remy said.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks. Not wanting to be alone, I had texted Jared while we were in route. “Thanks for the ride, though.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I hope what happened tonight doesn’t cause you too much stress.”
I tugged on the door handle to open it. The night air was cool on my face, and I welcomed it, which was a sobering feeling—one that gave me clarity of vision and thought. I approached Jared, who stood in front of Remy’s car. He raised his hand in a gesture of hello. Remy didn’t respond. Instead he peeled away slowly, disappearing beyond the street corner.
Jared screwed his face up. “Guess he still doesn’t like me,” he said.
“Don’t take it personally,” I said, “Remy doesn’t like a lot of people. Anyway, thank you for coming. Really. I hope I didn’t keep you from anything”
He shook his head. “I was on a date, but it was going pretty poorly. You kinda saved me from it.”
My insides went cold, though they had no reason to. That Jared was in the dating circuit wasn’t a surprise. Not really. He’d been going on dates for the last month or so, and I couldn’t blame him for it. I couldn’t expect him to wait while I kept him at arm’s length for God only knew how long. At the same time, not even my most logical, rational self could keep away the tinge of jealousy stinging the back of my throat.
“Okay, well, still… I’m sorry for interrupting your date.”
Jared followed me inside, and we sat down at the dining table. He then went about the process of laying out the fried chicken he’d brought with him. It was simple but effective comfort food, and food I really needed at that moment in time.
“I trashed my car tonight,” I said after swallowing the first mouthful of food.
“What?” he asked. “Where?”
“On the way back from the mansion. I was driving, it was misty, and—”
“You aren’t hurt, are you?”
“No. The air bag beat me up good, gave me a headache, but other than that I’m fine. The car was way worse than I was. It’ll probably need to be in the shop a few days.”
“It sucks about the car, but I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Tell me about it. The first car I ever buy, and I trash it within a couple of weeks. I should’ve stuck to walking.”
Jared pushed my food over toward me. “You’re sure you’re okay, though?”
I nodded and put a French fry in my mouth. “I’m fine,” I said, “Really. Only… I haven’t told you why I had the accident.”
“I’m all ears.”
I took a breath. “So, it was misty,” I started, “and the road was hard enough to see. I decided to try and use a little magick to clear the road of mist, you know, the usual thing a witch might try given the situation.”
“And?”
“I must have been paying more attention to the spell than to the road, because the next thing I knew, something jumped into my path and zipped across. I had to swerve to avoid hitting it. I guess the roads were slippery on account of the rain, so I lost control of the car and ended up in the swamp.”
“Shit. Did you hit it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know what it was. I think it was human.”
“Human?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think the shock clouded my memories of what happened. When I try to picture whoever, or whatever, it was I almost hit, all I see is a blur. I know I drove my car into the swamp, and I’m sure something… happened… while I was in there, but I can’t remember.”
“Maybe you hit your head harder than you thought. Have you gone to the hospital to have it looked at?”
“I don’t think I have a concussion, if that’s what you mean. Besides this strange memory loss, I’m fine.”
“But you didn’t hit anything,” he said. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yeah, totally sure. I know I didn’t hit anything or anyone, other than the guard rail.”
Jared paused. “This is going to sound stupid, but I’m talking to a witch, so maybe not.”
“What is it?”
“Do you think there was some kind of magick involved?”
He didn’t know what had happened at the mansion—had no way of knowing Remy and I had brought a cat back from the dead, or that we had met Tamara. He was just adding possible theories to explain what had happened to me out on the road. Still, the thought that he knew something despite me not having said anything wormed its way into my mind and stayed there.
“Maybe,” I said, looking away.
“Maybe? I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m a pretty good liar, and that means I can tell when someone’s lying or holding something back.”
“I have no intention of lying to you,” I said. I had considered not telling him what happened back at the mansion, but I didn’t think I would be able to keep it from him for long. And if he found out from someone else… I wasn’t sure where he stood on the magickal resurrection of animals, but if there was even a chance he’d have a problem with it, then hiding this would only lead to problems down the line.
“Remy and I performed magick at the mansion,” I said.
“I knew that. He’s been teaching you, right?”
I nodded. “Today he taught me a different kind of magick; the kind of magick you probably aren’t supposed to do.”
Hard lines appeared on Jared’s face. He put his piece of fried chicken down entirely. “Okay?” he said, expecting me to continue.
Just blurt it out, I thought, and so I did. “I brought a cat back from the dead.”
“You… what?”
“Don’t ask me to explain the specifics. Blood magick is tricky. But… that’s what we did. And I think I made a mistake somewhere because, God, I don’t know. I think maybe something… something followed me from Remy’s mansion.”
“Followed you?” he asked. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“I mean that I think a spirit, or an entity, came after me and ran me off the road. Something that was pissed I had broken Death’s laws.”
Or something that had been sent by one psycho witch, but I didn’t think I should have mentioned that part.
Jared didn’t seem to be able to formulate a sentence. I understood why. How was a person supposed to reply to a statement like that one? Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure Death will let you off the hook was probably too optimistic.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m just… so, you think you pissed Death off? Why the hell would you do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “I didn’t think this would happen. Remy didn’t either. We both sort of just… rolled with the punches.”
“And now your car’s trashed and you’re shaken up.”
“I know. I feel like I should be apologizing.”
“Not to me,” he said, “I’m in no position to say anything, not after the shit I’ve done.”
“I want you to say something,” I said, “I don’t need you to tell me everything’s gonna be okay. I just needed to tell you, so there were no secrets between us. I don’t know what happened tonight, or what that thing I saw was, or why I can’t remember having even seen it. I just wanted you to know.”
Jared nodded, and I watched some of the tension disappear from his face. He nudged my container of food, reminding me it was there, so I picked up a thigh and took a bite out of it.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, “Maybe all you need to do is sleep it off. Maybe it’ll all come back to you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said, “maybe you’re right. I have a big day tomorrow, and I need to have my energy.”
“Can you believe I almost forgot about the ball?”
“Don’t you dare; I need your help getting the final things ready.”
“Don’t you have staff setting this up?”
“I do, but have you ever hosted a masquerade ball where the attendees were going to be witches, vampires, and a demon-blood?”
“I guess not,” he said. “Still think that’s going to work out well? You know, after what happened to Nicky.”
“What happened to Nicky was bad, but Jean Luc brought him to the bar and we were able to stabilize him. He turned out fine.”
“Yeah, but don’t witches hold a grudge?”
“Vampires hold grudges for longer, and since Nicky hadn’t had a chance to hurt any of them, they can hardly complain. Anyway, it’s been three months. It’ll be fine.”
“I trust you,” he said, nodding. “And I’ve got the day off, so whatever it is you need, you can count on me.”
What I need is for you to make sure you look damn fine in that suit of yours.
That was what I felt like saying, but I held back. Despite all that had happened between us, nothing had happened between us. Not a kiss, not a passionate embrace, not even that date we were supposed to go on. He had asked, but I had turned him down, and if I was being honest, saying no to Jared hadn’t been easy. I had made the mistake of jumping into bed with Jean Luc without thinking about it, and my relationship with him hadn’t become a relationship at all. In fact, the specter of that night haunted most of our encounters, placing a veil of tension between us which was all but imperceptible, while at the same time preventing us from just having a conversation.
I didn’t want that to happen with Jared.