Belle Chasse by Suzanne Johnson

Author:Suzanne Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER 19

Audrey had a legitimate reason for screaming. She faced an undead and mostly toothless pirate with a big pistol aimed at her head as soon as she materialized into the Barataria transport. Plus, high tide was coming in and she’d landed in warm salt water up to her knees.

By the time I dragged her into the house and settled her into Jean’s chair with a glass of wine, she’d stopped hyperventilating. Her hand shook so badly the wine almost sloshed out of the glass before it reached her mouth. After a couple of sips, she calmed down. Honestly, if the girl was going to live in New Orleans—either the preternatural or human version—she needed to remain stoic at the sight of a gun.

“If I was killed in the Beyond by an undead guy, in a place where everything is kind of undead itself, would I really be dead or would it be, like, a bad dream?” She looked bug-eyed but hopeful.

“Sorry, no, unless you were already dead and famous or remembered by someone famous, you’d be pretty well screwed.” Unfortunate, but true.

She took a few moments to absorb this inequity, and I noticed “Bob” had left the room with Eugenie and Jean had settled into a dark corner armchair, pretending to read while he eavesdropped. Good. I wanted his opinion after she left.

“Why are you back so quickly?” I glanced at my wristwatch, wondering not for the first time how Rene had found one with a pink band. She’d been gone only two hours.

“Well, I delivered your message to Alex.” She smiled. “I thought it sounded like a serious message. You acted like it was serious. But it made him laugh, and he asked me to bring you this.” She held out an envelope exactly like the one Ken had brought, minus the blood spatter. “He made me wait in the other room while he wrote it. Was your message a test of some kind?”

“Sort of.” As near as I could tell, she hadn’t opened the envelope. I tore off the end and pulled out the single sheet, written on my own Mardi Gras-colored argyle stationery that I’d left on Alex’s desk:

Good one, DJ. Glad to see you’re as paranoid as you need to be. Audrey is okay. She knows how to keep her mouth shut. I’ve tested her a few times myself. Lennox isn’t watching her because he doesn’t think she has enough common sense to operate a transport. He flew her to New Orleans coach class when she got in trouble at her school in London for setting the dormitory on fire. I think there’s a family resemblance.

She’s smart and honest, and doesn’t mind letting Lennox continue to believe she’s a hopeless case. She knows virtually nothing about the magical world except what she’s read in books, and too much time with her father has turned her against the bureaucracy, so use her and teach her. We might need her.

Remember what we did the first night of the blizzard? On the living room floor? I want to do that again.

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