River Road (33 page)

Damn it, Robert wasn’t taking this seriously. Big surprise. I wondered if Rene knew what he was up to. I raced upstairs, almost tripping over Sebastian, and flew around the library. I might not be able to keep up with my backpack, so I picked out a few helpful potions and charms already made up, small things that would fit in the pockets of my jeans. On the way out, I grabbed a couple of other items from the kitchen.

Mahout stood propped against the back door, blocking my path. “Good idea,” I said, grabbing the staff and the thigh holster Alex had rigged for it. “But you’re the last resort.”

Although if Mace Banyan wanted to pop over from Elfheim and take down the nymph, that would be okay.

I went into the darkened bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, debating whether or not to wake Alex. He looked like a big kid with his hair tousled, dark lashes brushing his cheeks, and not a weapon in sight. I swept his hair aside and put my palm to his forehead. He felt less feverish, but I decided to let him sleep. I’d pumped enough painkillers in that potion last night to keep him groggy for a while.

“Wish me luck,” I whispered.

On the way to the car, I called Jake and got voice mail. I left a message. I tried again en route to Pointe a la Hache. He’s probably just in a reception dead zone, I told myself. Doesn’t mean he’s in trouble.

Next I called Rene at the MERTWIN number, hoping he’d pick up rather than Robert, and finally got lucky.

“Yo, wizard.”

“You talked to Robert this afternoon?”

Rene grumbled something I couldn’t understand, but I’d bet it was some kind of Cajun curse. “No, I tried talking to the SOB ’bout Libby last night but he don’t listen so good. What’s he done?”

I told him, at least as much as I knew. Our biggest piece of evidence was asleep in my bed. “I’m headed to Pointe a la Hache,” I said, and described the location. “Do you know where it is?”

“I’m over in Harahan, but I’ll go that way now, babe. Don’t be runnin’ in there all commando, wizard. Libby won’t hurt Robert but if you’re right about all this she’d hurt you plenty. Nothin’ against your magic, but she’ll be one tough broad to kill.”

Tough broad, my ass. “I’ll see what things look like when I get there. Just come as soon as you can.”

If Rene was in Harahan, a western suburb of New Orleans, he was a good forty-five minutes behind me, depending on traffic. I wasn’t as confident Libby wouldn’t hurt Robert, especially if he let it slip that we were looking for her. If nothing else, she might hex him into permanent fishhood.

I fidgeted through Westbank traffic again, and finally made my way back to Highway 23 into Plaquemines. I’d been in the parish more these past few weeks than in my previous twenty-eight years combined. I found it charming, as all of rural Southeast Louisiana was, with its dark marsh and swamp, its remains of old cypress, the exotic tang of its air, its sheer otherness.

Lately, it had been a bit too
other
.

I passed the ferry landing and looked for Robert’s white pickup, the light twin to Rene’s black extended cab. It was parked in front of the crumbling cinderblock shrine to Katrina.

I parked next to it and tried Jake again, without luck. I left messages telling him where I was and what was happening. I thought about it a few seconds and left a message on Alex’s phone as well. It was still on my downstairs coffee table. He wouldn’t find it unless he was awake and lucid enough to get down the stairwell.

I took a few deep breaths, climbed out of the truck, and slipped the elven staff into the holster. Most pretes have sharpened senses, and Libby and Robert could have heard me coming before I pulled off the road. I hoped Robert hadn’t exaggerated his ability to distract the nymph, not that I really wanted to watch his distraction technique.

I headed up the steep river levee, looking for the
Dieu de la Mer
. I planned to see where things stood, then wait for Rene or Jake to arrive.

The boat had been tied to the short, half-rotted pier that jutted out from a stand of scrubby bush, near where I’d found Alex yesterday. We’d need to check the river in this area for another breach—Libby seemed to be hanging out here a lot.

Squatting behind the foliage, I watched the boat for any movement and heard a male voice. Talk, then soft laughter. Robert chased Libby around the wheelhouse and onto the raised forward deck. She wore a short, white halter dress, and Robert was in jeans, so at least I wasn’t going to have to deal with naked pretes. They were both laughing, which meant Robert hadn’t given us away.

Libby stood with her back to me. Robert looked at the bank, then slowly scanned until he spotted me. I hoped he’d side with me against Libby, but I wasn’t sure.

He returned his focus to Libby. What an Amazon. I’d forgotten how tall she was. Robert was a good two or three inches shorter, and he was several inches taller than me. She’d also be strong, like any other prete. My days of underestimating Libby were behind me. But Robert was prete-strong too. I just wished I knew which side he was on.

Libby walked behind the wheelhouse again, and Robert paused behind her long enough to look back at me. He held a finger to his lips in a quieting motion, then waved me toward the boat.

I looked back toward the highway, straining my ears for any hint that Jake or Rene—or somebody—was coming. All I heard were gulls. If Robert was backing Libby, he’d have already told her I was here. If I left, she’d either lie in wait till she could kill me or someone else I cared about, or she’d escape back into the Beyond.

If Robert was backing me, he could help me bring her down as well as Rene could. Maybe better—he’d spent more time with her.

I duckwalked to the pier, crossed it as quietly as I could, and climbed aboard the boat on the narrow side by the wheelhouse, opposite where Robert and Libby had gone. Creeping to the edge of the wheelhouse, I peered around the corner. The rear deck was empty.

“Looking for us?” Robert slipped an arm around my waist from behind and jerked me around to face Libby. She stretched her lips in a broad smile. “Finally, wizard. I tried to kill you once before, but your wards kept me out. Did you like what I did to your friend?”

“Go back to hell.” I can be eloquent when I’m mad. I struggled against Robert, but he held me tightly against him, my arms pinned to my sides. “Robert, what the hell are you doing?” I grunted, trying to squirm out of his grip. “Don’t you understand what she’s done? Rene would not want you to do this.”

“Rene been loyal to the wrong people—you blinded him. Libby killed some wizards, right. Her sister was an accident—just wouldn’t cooperate when she tried to take her back home. I got no problem with offing wizards after what they done to our people. I figure me and Libby make a good team.”

“Rene is going to kill you.” I kicked backward, jamming my heel into his kneecap, but all he did was grunt and tighten his grip. Hoping that wisp of our mind-meld was still active, I sent a mental SOS to Rene and got a mental ping in return. He was on his way.

“Hold her still,” Libby said, stepping closer, and Robert changed his grasp so that he held me in place with his left arm. I still couldn’t break loose. With his right hand, he grabbed my hair and pulled my head back against his shoulder. I couldn’t move above the waist but I kicked at Libby as she approached. Panic threatened to paralyze me, but I knew I’d find a way to get a hand free to reach the tiny vials in my pockets or the staff. I just had to stay focused.

My foot caught Libby just above her ankle, but I might as well have kicked a tree. She didn’t react, just stopped in front of me and put a hand on either side of my face, advancing till we stood nose-to-nose. She really had to bend down to get on my level. She caught my gaze and tried to hold it. Guess she didn’t get the memo that enthrallment doesn’t work on me because of the elven genes.

But I could pretend. I didn’t have to act well enough to earn an Oscar, just convince one crazy nymph I was enthralled enough for Robert to let me go. Damned mer. If we lived through this, Rene was going to kick his fins all the way to Pass a Loutre and back.

I willed my muscles to grow slack even though they wanted to fight and scream. I stopped kicking at Libby and gazed in her green eyes, letting my focus grow soft after a few seconds.

“I think she’s under,” Robert said, loosening his grip on me. I let my legs go rubbery so I’d waver a little as he released me.

“Excellent,” Libby murmured. Her hands were still on either side of my face. “I thought you said she was a strong wizard, Robert. She’s just another stupid Green Congress bitch.”

I slipped my right hand slowly onto Libby’s arm and she tensed. My left hand I lowered to the staff, an excruciating inch at a time. I stroked her arm, keeping a blank look on my face and my eyes on hers.

She relaxed and chuckled. “I think she likes me.”

I willed every ounce of physical magic I could muster into her arm, pulled the staff, and caught her on the thigh.

She shrieked and threw me away from Robert, cursing in an incomprehensible gibber.

The wheelhouse and the wooden deck blurred past as I flew headfirst across the width of the broad aft deck, bounced off the rails, and landed with a thud against the corner of an old wooden box full of hooks and tackle. The shoulder of my sweater ripped as I fell hard across the storage box’s rough corner, splinters digging into my skin. Blood began soaking through the tears in the sweater, but I didn’t think it was serious.

In movies, when the bad guy gets the jump on the hero and hurls him across an alley or barroom like a sack of trash, the hero shakes his head and comes out swinging, stronger than ever. Not that I was any hero in this scene except by default, but it doesn’t happen that way. In fact, it hurts like hell.

I looked around for the staff, but it had fallen mid-flight. I finally spotted it lying on the opposite side of the deck by Libby’s feet, unnoticed.

If Libby had been less emotional, she’d have followed me across the deck and finished me off. She had plenty of time while I shook the colorful shooting stars out of my head and located the staff. But she had to scream at Robert first for letting me go, sending a fiery blaze of anger at the mer, who looked crestfallen and not a little tense.

Ironic, I thought, struggling to sit. Here I am, an empath, and the one time I’d like to feed off someone else’s anger I’m with a preternatural water creature whose emotions I can’t absorb and a mer who’d either been enthralled by her or wasn’t feeling much of anything. Too bad mers weren’t immune to her enthrallment like a true shapeshifter. Otherwise, Robert might be thinking more clearly.

I needed to neutralize him so I could focus on Libby. I felt in my pockets, thankful for unbreakable vials, and identified the camouflage potion by the raised dot on its cap. Time for the magic to begin.

CHAPTER
33

I flipped off the top of the vial and guzzled the potion. Libby continued screaming at Robert, wanting to know why she couldn’t enthrall me.

“Why don’t you ask me, Libby?” I pulled myself to my feet, holding on to the rail, and she whirled to face me. I think in her rage she’d forgotten I was there. Libby wasn’t stupid, but Adrian Hoffman had been right in calling nymphs unstable. Good to know. Unfortunately, I’d just reminded her I was here.

“Redeem yourself, mer,” she said. “Bring her to the back deck.”

Robert looked around wildly, and I didn’t move. A true invisibility potion doesn’t exist. Magic can take solid matter like a person, break it down, and move it—but it can’t make something solid disappear. Camouflage potions soften the edges, and make the thing or person blend with their surroundings. If I moved while Robert and Libby looked straight at me, they might be able to figure it out. So I stayed where I was.

Libby pointed at me. “She’s right there, you fool.”

Oops. Guess the potion didn’t work with Libby. Luckily, she didn’t want to do her own dirty work.

“I can’t see the bitch,” Robert yammered, looking around wildly. “She ain’t there.”

Libby hissed and backhanded him hard enough to knock him over the rails. He hit the water with a splash, but I wasn’t concerned. He was a freaking mer. Not to mention a fool, and I’ve heard God always looks out for fools. Since I probably qualified as one myself, it was a good thing.

“So, here we are, Libby,” I said. Maybe she’d go for a little girl talk while I figured out how to get closer to my staff. “What’s your real name, anyway?”

She limped toward me, not walking too well courtesy of my little zap with Mahout. She should have been hurt worse than that. A glint of silver flashed in the sunlight; she held a knife, probably the one she’d used to kill Tish. My own anger fired up and burned off some of the pain from my shoulder.

“Libetta is my name,” she said softly. “Mellind was my sister.”

I edged along the rear of the aft deck. If I could lure her to circle me, I might get within reach of the staff. So far, it was working.

“So, Mellind married Doug Hebert after the war, and you didn’t like it?”

“She gave up everything and he gave up nothing,” she said. “As soon as the borders came down, I decided to find her. Our father wanted her home.”

I tried to turn, but Libby was too fast. She had preternatural speed. I wasn’t all that fast on a good day, and this wasn’t shaping up to be a good day. I’d stayed up all night with a pink shapeshifter and a loup-garou who needed a chaperone.

I twisted as she launched at me with the knife, and was able to get enough leverage to throw her off balance. I felt the blade grind into my calf, but there were worse places it could have gone.

Still, if I didn’t get a break soon, I’d be spouting blood like a sieve. Libby rolled me and reached down to pull the knife free. It gave me a split second to pull another vial from my pocket and flick off the top. I tried to get it toward her face but she pulled up with the knife and I caught her in the stomach instead.

I groaned as the knife went into my upper arm. She released it and rolled away when my acid charm finally ate through her dress and hit skin.