Shadows of Bourbon Street (3 page)

As we waited for her to finish the explanation, my impatience grew to obnoxious levels. “Dragging out the details for effect is not the way to get on my good side,” I warned.

Kane hid a smile, and Drake let out a sigh.

The high angel narrowed those blood-tinged eyes at me. “It always ends up at your lover’s club.”

Startled, I jerked my head in Kane’s direction. His eyebrows were raised. He was clearly just as surprised as I was. Why would she go to the club? Unless…

Recognition dawned in Kane’s expression and we both said, “The portal.”

“What portal?” Drake asked.

“Bea opened one to Hell at the club in order to banish an evil spirit,” I said quietly. “But if the veil to Hell has been closed, I don’t know that we’ll be able to open it again.”

“If it’s truly a portal, and not a gate to Hell, it shouldn’t be a problem. Open it, and you’ll find our witch,” Chessandra said with finality as if the conversation was over.

I glanced at Kane. His expression mirrored exactly how I felt: completely confused and extremely dubious. “So you don’t really know if I can. You’re just hoping that’s the case, right? What if I do find her but then can’t get back myself?”

“You’ll find a way,” Chessandra said. “Your power…it’s unparalleled.”

“Jade,” Drake said. “Please. We need you to try.”

We.
The desperation filling the room pressed in, threatening to suffocate me. This seemed personal for both of them. I would help if I could. I’d never leave someone trapped in another dimension if there was something I could do about it, especially not with my history. My mother had been trapped in Purgatory for over fifteen years, and no one had tried to help her, not even the angels. I narrowed my eyes.

“Hey. Why are you suddenly worried about this witch? When Mom was taken to Purgatory after trying to help an angel, the council didn’t step in then.”

Chessandra hung her head.

Drake went to her side and bent to whisper in her ear. She nodded, and when she looked up, pink-tinged tears ran down her cheeks. Whoa, pink?

Drake noticed my alarm and said, “It’s the blood of her ancestors.”

Chessandra wiped the moisture from one eye and held her fingers up, staring at them. In a wispy, ethereal voice, she said, “We weep the blood of our own when they are at death’s door.”

Kane stiffened beside me. “Are you saying this witch belongs to you?”

“Not belong, Mr. Rouquette.” Chessandra focused on him as her unearthly expression vanished. Those red-tinged eyes dilated and a fire lit in them. “Mati is my sister.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“Jade—” Kane started.

I held up a hand and turned to him. “I can’t leave her there. You know I can’t. You can’t either. I know you.”

He dropped his gaze and gestured to the gorgeous silver dress. “But what about the wedding?”

“I know.” I grimaced. “But what else are we going to do? Say no?” I pulled away and shook my head. “I can’t do that. Can you?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “No.”

I threw my arms around him, hugging him tight, overwhelmed at his huge heart and unwavering support. “I love you.”

“I know, pretty witch.”

I turned to the angels. “Fine. We’ll help, but I have to get home to change.”

“Bring her back,” Chessandra said and waved an arm. The darkness faded as the world blurred around us. I groped for Kane’s hand, coming up empty. When the world righted itself, my head was spinning, but Kane was standing next to me, holding me up. And right in front of us was his shotgun double in the French Quarter.

Kane put his hand on the small of my back and led me into the house. Once inside, he pulled me into his arms. “You okay?”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

Tenderness filled his deep-chocolate eyes. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

I let out a choked laugh. “More like a walking nightmare. No one else has angels breaking up their wedding.” I placed a hand over his heart, my own breaking from the rush of emotion I felt seeing him in his tux. “You’re the amazing one for sticking with me through the crazy.”

He covered my hand and then brought it to his lips. “I’m part of the crazy, too, love. The evil started at my club, remember?”

Tears filled my eyes. “I know.” Sniffling, I met his penetrating gaze. “But you have to admit if it wasn’t for me, you likely wouldn’t be in this mess.”

He brushed a lock of hair off my forehead. “Babe, without you, my life would be empty and incredibly dull. We’ll do what we have to and then this wedding will go on. Now let’s get you out of that dress and go kick some ass.”

The way he said
get you out of that dress
made me go a little weak in the knees. Then I instantly felt horrible for my reaction. A woman’s life was on the line.

I nodded and headed for the bedroom. A sense of loss filled me as I slipped out of my wedding finery. Why couldn’t I have one normal day? Sighing, I hung my dress up and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. There were about two hundred bobby pins and a gallon of hair spray keeping my hair in the fancy updo. It looked fairly ridiculous with my casual attire, but unless I spent the next half hour unpinning and then washing the product out, I was just going to have to live with it.

Kane changed into a similar uniform: blue jeans and a black T-shirt.

Clutching the dragonfly, I followed him into the kitchen. Hope and happiness streamed off Mati’s talisman. She’d had positive energy before she’d been trapped. That was a good sign. “Ready?”

“Unless you think we should call in reinforcements.”

I thought about that for a moment. Getting the coven members to downtown during Mardi Gras would take hours. And if we did open a portal, once we slipped into another dimension, their power wouldn’t be useful anyway. Not unless they came with us. It was very tempting, though. Having others as backup was definitely preferable. But I shook my head. “I think we can at least check things out. See if we can find any clues first. I just hate the idea of leaving anyone trapped any longer than necessary if we can do something about it.”

“Okay, but I’m not letting you go anywhere by yourself.”

He wasn’t kidding, either. He’d followed me into Hell once. “Got it.” I held the dragonfly out. “I’m going to use this to create a connection to her. I want to see for myself where it goes.” I pulled some herbs out of my rack and went to work with the pestle and mortar. Once the ingredients were ground together, I placed the dragonfly in Kane’s hand.

He stood still, eyes locked on me. It was intense and oddly moving. This was the first time Kane and I were going to officially work together as shadow walkers. I smiled at him. Taking a pinch of the poppy seed and white willow mixture, I sprinkled the herbs over the dragonfly and said, “Goddess of the earth, we humbly offer the herbs of discovery.” The dragonfly immediately started to glow. “May your sight see through the veils of the universe and lead us to our quest.” Magic tingled from the center of my chest, and when I touched the dragonfly, it lit with sparkling white light.

For a moment, we stared at the pin. Then just as I was ready to give up, it fluttered to life.

“Wow. Impressive, Jade,” Kane said, his eyes wide.

I grinned. It wasn’t exactly a complicated spell, but the fact that it worked without having to call on the coven’s collective magic pleased me. “Now we’re ready to roll.”

Kane held up a hand. “Wait. Better leave a note for everyone. They’re bound to come looking for us sooner or later.”

“Good idea.” Our phones were still at Summer House.

Kane scribbled a note and left it on the counter. Pyper had a key. She’d find it.

“Go forth, dragonfly,” I said. “Take us to Mati.”

Kane and I followed the dragonfly out of the house, down his street, and then turned left into the crowds of Bourbon Street. The collective excitement of the crowd clung to me, both giving me a boost and draining me at the same time. No matter what I did, I couldn’t block out the emotions of hundreds of people all at once. The crowd was the exact opposite of an emotional vampire, like a drug rush or something. But it also left me raw and unable to control any of it.

“Oh, damn.” I waved a hand upward, forcing the dragonfly above the crowd. The last thing we needed was for it to get lost in the crowd, even though it seemed fairly obvious it was headed for the club.

Kane pressed against me, his hands on my hips as we fought our way through the hordes of people and the rogue strands of beads being thrown everywhere. Instant relief. His steady energy flowed into me, fortifying my own. I clung to him like a lifeline. It was slow going, but we’d gotten quite a few blocks before we were finally assaulted with a mass of flying beads. I ducked.

“Son of a bitch!” Kane cried and let go of me. The crowds instantly filled in the space between us and panic filled me, along with the crowd’s collective energy. My body hummed with it, making me want to crawl right out of my own skin. The violation of hundreds of strangers’ energy was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

“Kane!” I cried, pushing against a large intoxicated man begging a woman to flash her tits for him. “Move.”

When the man didn’t budge, magic burst from my fingertips.

“What the fuck?” he sneered, rubbing his arm. “What the hell, bitch? You got a stun gun or something?”

I craned my neck and ducked around him.

“Jade.” Kane grabbed my arm and staunched the invasion of energy once more. The panic fled until I realized we’d lost the dragonfly.

“Oh, man. Do you see it?” I called over the music blaring from the clubs.

Kane nodded and pointed ahead of us.

And sure enough, it was hovering right over the door of Wicked.

Chapter 3

“Let’s go.” Kane took the lead this time as I held on to him, and considering he was over six feet tall, he was able to cut a better path.

When we got to the front of his club, the dragonfly dropped and fluttered inside. I waved at Jim, the bouncer, and ignored his questioning glance. The two strippers who were trying to entice the crowds weren’t nearly as tactful.

“Kane,” a short blonde wearing two tiny strips of leather gushed. “What the heck are you doing here? You can’t seriously be bringing Jade to the club for your honeymoon.”

“Slight change of plans,” he said and brushed past them.

“Don’t let go of me,” I said to Kane when we got inside. The club’s energy was stale and held an echo of past patrons. I could block it out on normal days, but not after the onslaught of the crowds outside.

“I’ve got you.”

We stood at the back of the club, watching the dragonfly. It hesitated and then took off fluttering in a circle high above the stage and the patrons. It moved slowly at first, then sped up, flying faster and faster until it was making a circle right over the spot where we’d opened the portal.

Kane’s hand tightened around mine.

“She used it,” I said, certain that was the case.

He nodded. “If what the angels said is true, then yes, I agree.”

“But if the other shadow walkers followed it here, why didn’t they see traces of it?”

“Maybe they weren’t looking for it.”

“Maybe.” Snapping my fingers, I whispered, “Return.” The dragonfly zoomed back to us and landed lightly in my palm. “Thank you.” I tucked it into my pocket. “Are you ready?” I asked Kane.

“As ready as I’m gonna be.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.”

It had been a few weeks since Kane and I had peeked into the shadow world. The ability had been an unexpected gift—or curse, depending on how you looked at it. At first, every time we’d touched I’d been plunged into darkness. But we’d finally found some sort of balance. It still happened, but we’d been working so hard to stay in this world it was weird to invite the shadows back in.

We clasped hands, and with a deep breath, I let my guards down. Lust and despair, combined with excitement from the club patrons, rushed into me at the same time the world faded to black and then resettled in shades of gray. The club patrons were still visible but muted now and seemingly wholly unaware of us.

Nothing about the club seemed out of the ordinary. There weren’t any lost souls or even a trace of the portal. “That was unexpected,” I said. “Remnants of the portal should be here.”

“Now what?”

I inched forward, pulling Kane with me. People from our world unconsciously moved aside, parting for us in some mystical way. When we got to the edge of where I knew the portal had been, I crouched and placed a hand on the ground. A tiny spark sizzled at my fingertips. “It’s still active. I think I need to call it.”

Kane tugged on my hand, pulling me up. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

I worried my lower lip and shook my head. “No. I don’t. But Chessandra said Mati was on the verge of death. What if we wait too long? What if she dies wherever she is because I’m too scared to go after her?”

Kane’s reluctance was fierce as it slammed into me. “I won’t risk you. Not now. Not ever.”