I touched several and decided on the charm that I hadn’t had the courage to wear in a long time. The last time I had used this type of working I had killed the only other skinwalker I had met in modern times. It tingled with harnessed power, hot on my fingertips. By touching it, I had locked and loaded the charm. The petrified wood disc was hand-carved to look like a spray of leaves. I slid a stake through the holes in the back and added it to my hair. It looked like a hair ornament where it dangled at the crown of my head.
It looked innocent enough, but it was designed to explode into a magical attacker and dissolve both flesh and spell, leaving the assailant an empty, lifeless husk. Wearing it, I felt better about my lack of steel weapons. While I was at it, I slid on the wooden ring too. It had been hand-carved, created to provide me temporary protection from aggressive spells. It gave me a fifteen-second window to get away if I was magically attacked.Pretty cool, though it was a onetime-use amulet and, once used, couldn’t be reloaded.
—
I opened the door to see Bruiser on the front stoop, leaning against the post that held up the gallery overhead. His dark hair was hanging over his forehead, a little too long, his Roman nose slightly reddened from a day in the sun. His dress slacks were pressed to a perfect crease, the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to show off his well-muscled arms, and his shoes were polished to a high shine. The only odd note was the double shoulder rig that would be hidden beneath his sports jacket when we got to the restaurant. His lips turned up in reaction to my perusal, and he held out a single dark red rose, the exact shade of my favorite lipstick. Scent had nearly been bred out of red roses, and because my skinwalker senses made flowers with scents a bad prezzie, the rose was perfect for me in every way.
I accepted the bloom, and the heat in his eyes made it seem as if I were accepting something far more valuable than a flower from him. His fingers caressed along mine, lingering on the ring I wore.
“Jane,” he said. Just that. My name.
And something that was both icy and scorching raced along my nerves, beneath my flesh.
Mate, my Beast purred.Would rather have cow than plant.
Mentally I shushed her, and shoved aside the image of Bruiser meeting me at the door with a raw steak in his hand. “Hiya, Bruiser,” I said, moving back to invite him in. I stepped into the kitchen for a vase, my low heels clicking. I could feel his eyes on my butt the whole way.
“Get a room,” the Kid grouched, proving me right.
I grinned. Bruiser laughed. He was closer than I thought, his mouth suddenly at my ear as he reached around and took the narrow white vase from my hands. He pinned my hips to the counter with his body and held me lightly in place as he filled the vase with water and placed the rose inside. He was Onorio hot. Burning through my clothes to my skin. A human that warm would be in a hospital, packed with ice bags. I took a breath and smelled his faintly citrusy scent.
“Shall we place it by your bed?” he murmured, his lips moving on the side of my arched neck. His heat shot through me like lightning. I droppedmy head back to his shoulder. At six feet, I couldn’t do that to many men without hurting myself, but Bruiser was a tall man. “So it can be seen when we wake?”
“You’ll make us late,” Eli said, the words bland but somehow amused.
Without raising his voice Bruiser said, “Your timing is dreadful, as usual.”
“His timing is fantastic,” Syl said. “But you two can romance after we eat. I’m starving.”
“Triple date,” Bruiser said, straightening. “I have a feeling it will not go well.”
—
We arrived at Stephan’s with a few minutes to spare, the lights in the four-star Cajun-Creole restaurant shining bright through the sparkling windows. The place had been refurbished and enlarged, the kitchen hidden behind a wall, the lighting all copper, the tables all quartz-topped with cast-iron bases, the seats all high-end leather.
Stephan’s had originally been a diner, and had closed down after a fire just before I arrived in NOLA. When the place reopened a month past, it was no longer a dive that specialized in fried foods and crawfish but an elite and expensive joint that required either lots of time on the waiting list for a reservation, or someone with moxie and power to get one of the twenty tables sooner. Someone like Bruiser, the MOC’s former primo.
We were shown to a large, U-shaped, leather-seated booth in back, big enough for us all with room to spare, but with limited linear length for us all to face the front door. Each of us was hardwired to sit so we could watch the entrance, and while the others were jockeying for position, I slid in, facing one of the back entrances that opened on the alley and the small courtyard. If I was a bad guy and had reconnoitered the restaurant, that’s the way I’d come in.
I placed the cloth napkin on my lap and waited until the others realized why I’d sat. The women figured it out first. Syl drew a file and started working on her nails with false patience. Jodi just rolled her eyes and rested a hip against the table, waiting.
The three alpha males looked both ways, considered the layout, and looked at each other, and with that peculiar communication ofbattle-weary warriors, they each took a seat. Bruiser shoved me over so he could take the aisle. Eli maneuvered around next to me in the center of the U and pulled Syl in after him. Eli was the most limber and slightest of build. He could leap over the table faster than either of the others. Wrassler held out his strong right hand and encouraged Jodi into the seat next to Syl, so he could take on the other aisle seat. Wrassler was the biggest and the slowest, due to the injury he’d received in a battle at vamp HQ. Didn’t make him less valuable in a fight. Just meant he took a different job and different position.
We three well-armed women shared a look that saidAren’t they cute?and let the guys position us where they wanted. Not that we didn’t each decide how we would respond to a threat. Finding the best defensive positions was hardwired into us too.
Together, we were that mixture of races and genders common to New Orleans and bigger cities: Black, white, tribal, cop and civilians, VIPs of vamp politics and ordinary folks, all sitting together. Eating together. Ready to defend our fellow diners from an outside threat, or a hidden threat from within. Together we were a small army.
The waiter was a good-looking local kid, skin a reddish brown color that suggested a gorgeous mixture of tribal, Black, and white. He had a local patter and graceful social skills, as he gave a half bow to our table. “How y’all doing tonight. A pleasure to have a such beautiful group of people in Stephan’s. Hope you’re hungry. Tonight there are three specials on the menu and a wonderful selection of wines to complement the meals...”
I tuned him out. Not just because I’d have the beef, and everyone at the table knew it, but because the head of NOPD district eight, Commander Walker, and his wife had just entered Stephan’s. At the same time, a thin trail of smoke was wending its way down the aisle from the direction of the restrooms at the back of the restaurant. And the smoke was purple.
—
The purple smoke trailing along the middle of the aisle didn’t act like regular smoke. It didn’t spread out and dissipate into the room. It didn’t rise as if heated. It moved almost as if with purpose, in a straight line downthe aisle, past our booth, toward the entrance of Stephan’s. Toward Commander Walker and his wife, who were being seated.
“Problem,” I said, interrupting the waiter’s patter.
“Black magic witch working?” Bruiser asked. He had already seen the smoke.
