I picked up Eli like a baby and carried him toward the street.
Liz braked hard and opened her door. “You stupid—” She stopped shouting when Eli shifted, unconscious in my arms. “Son of a witch,” she cursed, whirling to open the hatch. “I can’t keep you alive, can I?” she demanded of his unconscious body.
“He’s a man,” I said, as if that was explanation enough. I laid him inside the back, gently positioning his leg. “And a warrior. Born and bred to run toward trouble, not stay safe.”
Angel Tit removed a first aid kit from the back of the HQ vehicle and ripped open a plastic package, removing a high-strength trauma pressure bandage, a kind I had never seen before, with a handle to create or release pressure.
Before he could wrap the seventy-inch-long dressing on top of the existing bandages and around Eli’s leg, Liz unhooked her amulet necklace and pulled three stones off. She shoved them under existing bandages, next to Eli’s skin. “Healing amulets,” she murmured, “calibrated to him.”
“Good,” Chi-Chi and I said at the same time.
As Voodoo and Tit worked, Alex said to me, on a private channel, “Cops won’t let the ambulance through. Not for us.”
He meant not for paranormals. Not even for the humans who worked for us.
“Yeah?” I said. “We’ll see about that. Call the Roberes. Get them to call the local mayors and the governor. Remind the elected officials that I can move my headquarters anywhere in the States I want. I’m sick of making that threat, and this is the last time I’ll say it. If Eli dies, or the next time they refuse assistance, or get in my way on official business, I’m outta here. I’ll move my headquarters to Asheville. And New Orleans can sink into the Gulf for all I care.” Pulling the MOC and the DQ headquarters out of the city would leave NOLA and the entire South to the strongest vamp warlord who could take and keep the hunting territory. “Tell them they can explain to their constituents that they’re responsible for the blood running in their streets because they chased us off. And tell them I’ll go onto national media to explain why I’m moving.”
“Yes, My Queen.”
“Dang skippy,My Queen.”
I said, “Liz. You. In back with Eli. Voodoo. Drive. I’m taking your bike.”
I pulled the Benelli and waved away his helmet. I wanted people to see my Beast face. “Everyone rides behind me and surrounding the SUV. Down any drone, stop any vehicle that chases after us. Alex,” I said. “Be ready for us. Medical protocol. We’re closer to HQ than any hospital I trust.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Medical protocol was brand-new. Trying it out on Eli meant working through problems on the fly.Holy crap.
I straddled the shiny white bike. Turned it on, happy for once to have an electronic start. Mad as I was, I might have broken a kick-start. “Move out.” My weapon clear and visible, my mouth open so my fangs showed, I pulled into the street.
Six blocks later, we came to the first barricade. The OIC—officer in charge—was on the phone, his body language confused and yet obsequious to the person he was talking to. Holding the cell away, he waved his men back, yelling, “Stand down! Stand down. Move your vehicles. Do not, repeat, donotimpede the Dark Queen’s progress.” The cop cars moved and the man waved us through, nodding at me. I snarled at him. He took three steps back.
There were no more stoppages. No traffic light problems either. The cops on the streets stopped traffic for us, waving us through.
As we motored toward HQ, I listened to Alex’s reports and updates. Wrassler had been picked up and was safe at HQ. The other Everhart witches and families were safe at HQ, standing on the grounds marking a ward around the entire property for ahedge of thorns. The vehicle with Florence had heard about the attack on me and had taken the long way to throw off our enemies, across Lake Ponchartrain, despite orders not to, and there had been an accident. She was sitting in traffic. My people were all alive. Some injured, banged up, a few with busted eardrums from magical and mundane explosions, and some with road rash from fast-stopping, sliding bikes.
Eli’s heart was still beating, slower now, in time with my own. Relief and fury danced through me like a rumba, grinding, both hot and cold, and putting an end to the politics.Now.
***
All the way through to the French Quarter, I ground my teeth because there was nothing to shoot, nothing to kill, and Eli was... Eli was bad.
It took forever, but we rounded the corner and I gunned the motor, racing into the back entrance of HQ, where a gurney and a line of security personnel, housekeeping, and even kitchen staff were lined up, ready to help. TheEverharts were standing with them too: Cia, Carmen, Big Evan, Molly, and... Angie Baby. I didn’t see EJ and no Cassy, which was good, because seeing Eli’s condition was probably too much even for little Angie.
Under the roof of the porte cochere but out of the way, I killed the bike’s engine and slung my leg over it, standing. “Angie doesn’t need to see this,” I said to Molly.
“I’m supposed to be here,” Angie said, her expression mulish. She crossed her arms and glared at me, her strawberry curls bouncing. “I’m not a little girl anymore. Eli’s hurt, with lots a blood and guts and I’m not gonna cry or act like a baby,” she said. “And something’s gonna come from over there”—she pointed at the back-left corner of the property, above the twelve-foot-tall fence—“when you open the trunk door.”
Evan cursed. A word he had probably never said in front of his kid.
“We don’t have thehedgeready,” Molly said.
Crap. I needed to look at time, if I still could, even if it made the cancer come back. “Probable bogey from the back-left quadrant,” I said into my mic. “Fire on sight. Do not allow a drone near HQ. Get Eli and the civilians inside. Take cover.”
My people raced into cover positions. The few steel shutters that were still open in daylight clanged and banged shut. Big Evan picked up his daughter and carried her inside, Molly and her sisters on his heels. The SUV carrying Eli turned in, made the small circle, and came to a stop under the porte cochere.
The hatch opened. Liz slid to the ground, bloody, shouting, “Evan! Help!”
