Easy Pickings (7 page)

I shot Lazarus a hard look and Joanne shot me one. I clamped my mouth tight before I said anything. I might not like how Laz smelled, but if Amaury thought demons were arriving in the Big Easy, it probably wasn’t a good idea to let him know that when I’d said we weren’t from around here, I’d really meant all three of us were from other worlds. He might think we were his demons. Right now he probably figured we were from, like, Pittsburgh. No point in tipping the vamp off—that would be bad for all of us. I ground my teeth and muttered, “Fine. Where do we find your voodooine? If she’s pulling down demons, she’s probably where we should start.”

Amaury gave us a toothy, nasty smile. “The bayou. Ten miles out. If you’re half the magic-makes you say you are, you’ll feel her when you get close. If you’re not …”

We left before he finished that threat.

I was very proud of myself. I made it all the way out the door, into sunlight, and halfway down the block before my knees buckled and I had to grab a fence for support. Or Lazarus, as it turned out. I’d been reaching for the fence, but he got there first, and although it would be bad form to mention it to one Captain Michael Morrison of the Seattle Police Department, between the fence and Lazarus, I’d much rather lean on Laz.

Jane, who apparently had the stamina and stomach of a racehorse, because she didn’t look nearly as affected by Amaury as I felt, stopped with her arms crossed beneath her breasts and frowned at me. Good impression of a brick wall, I thought, and wondered if my own shoulders were as imposing. “Didn’t you see,” I wheezed, but of course she hadn’t. I shuddered all over and wrapped my fingers around Laz’s forearm to prop myself upright. “That bastard is writhing with black magic, Jane. He wasn’t kidding. He’s sucking down every last drop of power in this city. I can See it now that I know what I’m looking for.”

I didn’t particularly want to, but I triggered the Sight as I spoke, glancing upward. Amaury’s hideaway was the center of a damned vortex, magic twisting in myriad shades toward the bordello and blackening as it reached it. That was how amalgamated magic tended to work, at least in my world. Either it was born of good intention and all those blended colors went to white, or it was bad news and it all turned black.

“Amaury’s a cesspool,” I said to the sky. “Oil spill. Whatever you want to call it, his aura is bubbling with evil, and I can’t read it, Jane. I have no idea if he was telling the truth. Do you know how long it’s been since I couldn’t read an aura?”

“Most of forever,” Jane guessed, which was actually completely wrong, but also hardly worth correcting. “He smells like blood and sex and lies to me,” she said, “just like any vamp. I figure they’re all lying, all the time.”

“He wasn’t wrong,” Lazarus rumbled. “You, me, d’big cat lady, we all from somewhere else, and somebody brought us t’rough. Maybe it’s dis voodooine. We find her, we get answers, whether Mister Amaury like it or no.”

I said, “I like the way you think,” and heard Jane make a sound that said she didn’t like anything about Lazarus, but that he probably had a point. I didn’t know why I got a free pass from her and Laz didn’t, except for maybe our weird physical similarities overrode her suspicions. I generally trusted the person I saw in the mirror, after all, and although Jane and I weren’t quite that carbon-copied, it was pretty close.

“What if she did bring a demon through?” Jane asked.

“You’re kind of a worst-case-scenario girl, aren’t you?” I tested my legs and found them worthy to stand on, but Laz kept an arm around my waist an extra minute anyway. I didn’t really have any complaints. “I’m not a demon. Are you?” Jane shook her head and we both looked at Laz, whose white teeth flashed brightly as he shook his head.

Jane’s scowl deepened and I wished I had something to throw at her. “Yes, of course, Jane, he’d lie to us if he was a demon. But I would lie to you if I was a demon, and you’d lie to us if you were one, so we might as well just take each other at our words and move on. If the voodooine did bring a demon through and it’s not one of us, well then by gosh we’ve got three adepts to take it down with. And I’ve fought demons before.”

“You fought demons?” Jane said incredulously. “And I thought my life was weird.”

“You turn into a giant panther. Your life is weird. That aside, do either of you know where we’re going?” I wished I had my classic Mustang, Petite. I would feel a lot safer going anywhere with her sturdy steel body and 190 mph engine around me. But I’d left her on the outskirts of the city, its peculiarities—its wrongness—strong enough from out there that I hadn’t wanted to risk her custom purple paint job, nevermind the decade-plus of work I’d put into her.

“Yeah,” Jane said, and jerked her thumb to the indistinct south. “The bayou. But we’re gonna need a vehicle, unless you two can adopt four fast legs.”

“Actually, I can.” We both glanced at Laz, who shrugged apologetically.

“D’hare, oui, I can do dat. D’snake, him too. Young man, old man—”

“Beggar man,” I said under my breath, “thief.”

Laz gave me a sharp, curious look, then flashed that grin again. “Oui, dem too, but de fox, maybe de coyote, dey d’fastest I can do, and dey smaller dan d’cat.”

“Really? My mass stays the same when I change. I’d think you’d make a pretty, er, massive, coyote. You’d keep up with a—”

A resounding crunch interrupted me. Laz and I turned to see Jane reaching through the smashed-in window of a 1987 AMC Eagle station wagon. She flipped the sun visor down, keys fell into her palm, and she jangled them at us. “We’ll drive.”

I gawked, then threw my hands in the air. Stealing cars, what the hell, it wasn’t my world anyway. If there was a Joanne Walker up in Seattle to get blamed for it, I would feel very bad, but if this world had a Joanne Walker, it seemed to me like she should be the one down in the Big Easy, fighting this world’s fight. For a moment I wondered if, if there had been a Jo here, what had happened to her, and then decided I really didn’t want to know and said, “I’ll drive,” instead of pursuing the thought.

I never let anybody else drive if I could help it, even if I didn’t know the territory. I’d been the best driver in my class at the police academy, and it was a point of pride. I figured I’d have to argue it, but to my astonishment, Jane handed the keys over, got in the front passenger’s seat. Laz got in behind me, and Jane played navigator all the way out of the city limits toward the rich green swamps of the bayou.

Any other time in my life and I’d have reveled in just the drive. The roads weren’t good, but I’d cut my teeth on narrow, twisting Appalachian trails, so not good was a familiar variable. And the rest of it was amazing, the rich green scent of rot from old trees and stagnant water accompanying the endless buzz of mosquitoes, loud enough to be heard over the Eagle’s engine when we paused a time or two to decide which way to go. There were alligators and snapping turtles and birds I didn’t know the names of out there, and I dearly wanted to stop the car and roll around in it all. On the other hand, I also dearly wanted to know how we’d gotten to this world, and rolling around in slimy, duckweed-coated water would not get us any answers.

After a while Jane’s directions started getting a little fuzzy, and I pulled over to trigger the Sight and see what it could tell us. At home I would guess nothing: magic was hard to track. But here, with Amaury dragging power out of every adept in the region, there was a constant pull, active magic being used, and that I could see.

We were just about on top of a power drain. Gorgeous rich red and gold magic spiraled into the sky, drawn inexorably toward New Orleans. I exhaled, relieved, and opened my door. “We’re here. We’ve just got to get out and root around a little. Everybody be careful, though. If this woman can call up demons, we don’t want to piss her off.”

Jane and Lazarus climbed out of the car, and as we slammed the doors shut, the station wagon exploded.

I had shields, mental constructs that I’d finally—after being bitten by one of Hollywood’s favorite monsters—learned to keep in place always, all the time, quote the raven forevermore. They kept me from being roasted alive.

They did not keep me from being knocked ass over teakettle halfway across the bayou. Cars, despite what movies told us, did not explode at the drop of a hat. When one did, the resulting concussive fireball was not something our heroes should idly or easily get up and walk away from. I hit water with a cannonball splash any twelve-year-old boy would be proud of, and came up flailing and coughing thick green muck.

Lazarus was a shadow in flame, unmoved by the inferno around him. I couldn’t seen Jane at all, not even her aura: the magic-born fire’s colors blocked everything else from my sight. I stood up—the water turned out to be only hip-deep—and was envisioning my shields extending to cramp the fire, to take away its air and put it out, when it winked out all on its own.

All right, not quite on its own. Lazarus came clear as the flame faded away, magic flexing around him. Dirt brown, primarily, and gold that glittered and shone and faded, like it was sucking up the fire and dispersing it into the air. I stood there in the water, mesmerized by the flow and flex of power. The whole act was performed in such a concentrated, braided way that it made me think of covens. I’d seen a dozen witches working together braid threads like that, but never an individual. The man had been big guns wherever he came from, that much I was sure of.

And speaking of big guns, he tugged the burnt ruin of his shirt off, exposing some of the most flawless pectorals I’d ever laid eyes on. Bits of cloth smoldered against his skin. He brushed them away without concern and I gave myself a shake. Standing around gawking at beautiful men would not deal with the problem of whatever had exploded our car, and I still didn’t know where Jane was. I waded out of the water, realizing the Eagle had only exploded about five seconds ago. My ears were only just beginning to ring, a slightly delayed reaction to the eruption. I got back to Laz’s side and shouted, “Are you okay? How’d you do that? Where’s Jane?” without being able to hear myself, then remembered I was a healer. I’d even dealt with hearing problems in the past, and it wasn’t hard to clear the bells away.

Laz bellowed, “Fine, I fine. Dat was eart’ magic, cherie. Fire eat de air, but soil snuff it out,” back at me, then looked startled when I put my hand on his cheek and shot a bolt of healing power through him to clear his ears too. He dropped his jaw a couple times after, and said, “Jane,” in a more normal voice, and shook his head.

I took a breath to start being worried with, and had it stolen by the scream of an infuriated big cat.

Beast hates fire. Fears fire. Jane is quick, but not quick enough. Take control, force shift, leap. Away from fire, away from burning-magic smell. Dark stink. Strong stink. Easy to track. Not-witch woman smells big over the fire: wet, not scared. Hollow-man smells of earth magic, not fear. Safe from fire. Good.

Beast hunts.