River Road (21 page)

A stupid smile plastered itself on my face before I could stop it. Not that I tried very hard. “Yeah? What are we going to talk about?” I’m so sophisticated it’s scary sometimes.

He slid his right arm around my waist and angled in for a kiss. It was sweet and soft, and I ran my hand down his cheek.

“We’ve kissed before,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but you weren’t sober so it gets thrown out on a technicality.” I caught a flash of the killer dimples and started to laugh before he moved in for round two and put a little more heat into it, winding his fingers through my hair and tracing his other hand in slow circles on my back. I quit laughing.

Jake groaned when Fats Domino began singing out of my purse on the coffee table. I was starting to dislike Mr. Domino. “Ignore it,” I said, grabbing Jake’s collar and returning his attention to the matter at hand, namely me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made out on a sofa, but it was all coming back to me.

“I didn’t hear a thing.” He slid a hand under my sweater and began kissing his way toward my collarbone.

He eased me to my back and shifted his body alongside mine, nuzzling my neck and breathing in deeply before tilting his head up to kiss my ear. I brushed my hand through his hair and tried to pull him to my lips, but he growled and continued moving along my neck, nipping at my earlobe. My head tipped in an effort to catch his mouth for another kiss, but strong, rough hands—too rough—clutched my hips and held fast, one muscular leg slipping between mine.

Laughing, I slapped at his shoulder. “Do you always go this fast on a first date? I can’t move.”

He stilled, his breath heavy and hot against my neck, and I realized something had changed. I was still at playful, but he’d moved into possession. He held me too tightly, his mouth had grown too still over the artery thudding against his lips. If he broke skin, I’d be furry by Thanksgiving. The thought sent my heart rate into hyperdrive, and I felt him inhale deeply, taking in my fear.

Scent could send a wolf over the edge before he could think better of it.

“Jake?”

My voice sounded too uncertain.
Calm it down, DJ
.

“Hey, Marine. Let me up.”

He made an unintelligible sound, and I struggled against his grasp. He shifted more weight onto me.

“DJ…” The low growl of my own name rumbled through me. It wasn’t a sign of consciousness, but a warning.

I froze as the long, deep kiss he’d planted on my neck turned into a bite. My skin was between his teeth. I didn’t even want to breathe.

I eased a hand to his shoulder and did the only thing I thought might bring him around. I shot a jolt of magical energy at him—just a mild electrical shock, not enough to hurt him and not even a heavy tap on the scant physical energy I possessed as a Green Congress wizard.

He jerked his head away and looked at me with eyes that had turned a flat, reflective golden-yellow. His wolf.

“Jake? Stop. Listen to me.”

“Shit.” He pushed himself off me and stood up, looking down with eyes that were slowly darkening back to amber.

I took a deep breath and blinked, trying to force my muscles from shaking with the drain of adrenaline.
Calm, DJ. Don’t upset him.
I sat up and forced a smile. “It’s okay. No big deal. We just moved too fast.”

I stood and reached for his hand, but he jerked it away.

He started pacing, and I didn’t need to read his emotions to see he was scared. “No, it’s not okay. I thought I could control … I can’t…” He slammed his fist into the wall, smashing through the plaster and sending out a cloud of white, chalky debris. The electrical wiring inside the broken lathing lay exposed.

“Jake—stop!” I reached for him as he thrust his fist toward me, stopping about two inches from my nose. It took everything I had not to flinch, but instinctively I knew if I showed fear now, we’d never come back from it.
He
might never come back from it.

“Watch,” he said. His knuckles were bloody and raw from impact with the wall, but as I took his hand the skin reknitted itself. Within thirty seconds, he was unmarked but for a fine coating of plaster dust and an earthquake crevice in his psyche. I’d never known a were could heal that fast. But as people kept telling me, loup-garou were not ordinary weres.

“I’m a long way from human, DJ,” he said, then laughed. It sounded as bitter as chicory coffee the morning after. “I thought I had the damned wolf under control, but he’s still controlling me.”

I held his fist in my hand and forced his fingers to uncurl. “I’ve never been purely human, Jake. We’ll just take it slow. I know you won’t hurt me.”

But even as I said the words, I wasn’t sure I meant them. Moments ago, I hadn’t known it at all. I’d been scared.

His voice grew hard and he still wouldn’t look at me. “I wouldn’t hurt you but
he
might.”

With horror, I realized he hadn’t accepted his situation at all. He’d just become a better actor. Until he came to terms with what happened, he would never be able to control himself. “You
are
him. The wolf is not separate.”

He pulled his hand away and clenched his fist again, holding it at his side. “I am
not
him. I won’t
be
him.”

God, what could I say? He had to calm down before he shifted spontaneously, and as brave as I tried to sound, I wasn’t sure how either one of us would react if that happened.

I practiced breathing and kept my voice low and level. “You have to accept what you are. You have to make peace with it.”

He avoided my eyes as he walked past me to the kitchen counter and grabbed his keys. “I better take you home. It’s getting late.”

“Don’t push me out, Jake. Let me help.”

He looked at me finally, and the pain in his eyes made me want to cry. “I don’t know how to let you help me. I don’t know how to help myself, or even what
would
help.”

He chuckled and shook his head, looking at the floor. “I think you pushed a whole set of buttons the folks at Quantico didn’t anticipate.”

I smiled a little at that. I knew one of the things his sponsor had done was bait him to lose his temper, to see how far they could push him before he lost control and shifted involuntarily. He must have achieved a good mastery of the wolf or the enforcers wouldn’t have let him come back to New Orleans. But anger wasn’t the only strong emotion, was it?

“We’ll call it a night, but I’m not willing to give up on us.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. “Let’s slow it down and start over.”

He nodded, but wouldn’t look me in the eye.

The drive home was silent and tense. Finally, he asked, “Who called? It might be about the case.”

If I’d answered my phone, could we have avoided that catastrophe? I pulled it out of my purse to check the call log. “Alex.”

Jake grunted. “That figures. I’m not sure my cousin’s too happy to have me working with you guys.”

“He’s just worried about you.” I unbuckled my seat belt and shifted around to face him. “Look, I know it’s different for him as a shifter than it is for you, but he can help you. Let him.”

He didn’t answer, just kept his eyes on the road, so I punched the buttons to retrieve the phone message. It was brusque.

“DJ, call me when you get home. A fisherman just found Melinda Hebert’s body on the riverbank in Plaquemines, near another breach.”

CHAPTER
21

Tish sounded half asleep when she answered the phone at six a.m. “DJ, do you know what time it is? What’s wrong?”

I gave her the text-message version on the latest Styx rift and Melinda Hebert, then asked her to stop by. “I have an idea on how to permanently seal these rifts, but I want somebody to know what I’m doing.”

In case it goes badly, I didn’t add.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Tish said quietly. “What are you planning?”

“Stop by and I’ll tell you.”

I didn’t want to explain over the phone. I could plead for her silence better in person.

I’d been up late last night, making sure all the pieces were in place. Alex had told me Melinda Hebert’s body had been carefully laid out on the bank of the river near Duvic, fully dressed. A fisherman checking his traps had found her. The cause of death wasn’t known, but the body had been snapped up by the Plaquemines Parish authorities and Alex couldn’t get anywhere near it.

He also had run into Denis Villere, who was angry that we were using the Delachaise twins for all of our work. To appease him, Alex hired him to dive in the area where Melinda’s body had been found—thus the discovery of the new rift near Duvic, which was upriver and alongside human populations. I didn’t know what would happen if someone drank water contaminated with cooties from the Styx but it couldn’t be good.

Thankfully, Alex had been so preoccupied he hadn’t asked about the date with Jake, so I didn’t have to decide if I’d be helping or hurting Jake by keeping my mouth shut.

I thought everything was ready. Alex would be tied up most of the day trying to get access both to Melinda’s body and the police reports, and Jake would be digging through the contents of Doug Hebert’s filing cabinets. Their investigation hadn’t yielded any results so far, but at least my window of opportunity had opened.

My last call of the night, after much soul-searching, had been to Rene Delachaise. He’d been suspicious but agreed to be at my house by two, as long as I paid him for another day’s lost wages. If this didn’t go well, an overdrawn bank account and some pissed-off Elders would be the least of my worries.

I was sitting in the living room reading the paper when Tish arrived at seven, looking rumpled and frantic.

“What have you done?” She barged in the back door before I had it fully open, and tossed her purse on the table. Settling her hands on her hips, she looked me up and down. “Nothing looks out of place, just dark circles under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep?”

Great. Add concealer to the shopping list. “Stop playing mama and pour yourself some coffee,” I said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“I don’t want coffee.” She sat in the chair facing mine and gave me a she-bear scowl. “What are you up to?”

“Have you come up with any ideas on how to permanently seal the rifts between the Mississippi and the Styx?” I laid the paper aside and crossed my arms, knowing she hadn’t.

She slumped. “No, it’s complicated, isn’t it? I mean, wizards aren’t built to do work underwater, yet unless some kind of direct magic is used, the repairs won’t be permanent. I’ve wracked my brain to think of another species that could do it, and I come up blank.”

Exactly. “Do you know anyone who’s ever done a power-transfer?”

“Oh my God.” Her voice cracked, and she went to pour herself a cup of coffee after all. “You are not going to transfer your power to anyone,” she said, panic taking her voice into the ozone. “Are you insane? What if it doesn’t work and you end up losing your magic altogether or, worse, draining so much you kill yourself?”

Her eyes grew narrower with every word. “And what if it does work and whoever you give your power to figures out how to keep it? Honestly, DJ. This is a million times worse than dilly-dallying with Jean Lafitte. Tell me you’re kidding.”

I just looked at her.

She set the coffee mug on the table and rubbed her eyes. “You aren’t kidding.”

She wasn’t taking it well, but at least she hadn’t threatened to tattle.

“I swear to God if you tell me you’re serious about this, I’m calling the Elders. You need to be saved from yourself. You’re just like Gerry.”

“Ouch.” Gerry had died in the process of going rogue. If his prete partner hadn’t killed him in a double-cross, the Elders would have given him the death penalty. This time, she hadn’t meant it as a compliment. “Look, Tish. I know it’s risky, but I think it can work. I’ve found a ritual for a short-term sharing of power, not an outright transference. Twenty-four hours, max. And we have to do something—the contamination is too close to where people live now. The Elders will drag their feet until it’s too late.”

“You don’t even know what’s causing the rifts.”

“No, but how many people do we let get sick—or worse—while we’re figuring that out?”

The rise and fall of her shoulders told me I’d won. She couldn’t think of a better idea, either. “Who are you going to do it with? Alex?”

I took a deep breath. “No. Alex is not to know about any of this till it’s over. I mean it. Not. A. Word.”

Her lips tightened into a narrow ridge. “Jake? I don’t think he’s stable enough.”

She had no idea how unstable Jake was. “One of the Delachaise twins. I considered each of them and finally decided on Rene.”

Tish didn’t answer for a long time. A really long time. Enough time for me to rinse out both of our coffee mugs and put them in the dishwasher.

“That’s a really smart idea.” I could tell she almost choked on those words as she watched me wipe down the counter. “Are you sure you can trust him?”

“Well, there’s the million-dollar question.” I returned to the kitchen table, where I’d piled a couple of Gerry’s black grimoires—the kind that still had instructions on things like power transference rituals, before they’d been outlawed by the Elders. I felt a twinge of guilt that I’d made Tish complicit in this harebrained scheme. But if Rene and I accidentally killed each other or I’d misjudged him and he was going to add me to his list of murdered wizards, I wanted somebody to know how stupid I’d been in my final moments.

“I don’t have much to go on except intuition, but my gut tells me Rene is a good guy.” Of course I also liked his Corvette-stealing friend Jean Lafitte. There were those—Alex, for instance—who’d say my judgment had a few flaws.

Tish nodded. “Robert seems less antagonistic toward wizards, but I don’t think he’s serious enough. I agree Rene’s the one to do it with. How can I help? Do you want me to be here?”

I thought about it. Knowing she was keeping an eye on things would make me feel better, but I thought my best chance of convincing Rene to do this was if no one else was involved.

Finally, I shook my head. “Just help pick up the pieces if it goes south.”