Witch's Wrath (Blood And Magick #3)(29)

“How are you, Jean Luc?” I asked, after a pause.

“I am well,” he said.

“And the rest of your family?” I asked.

Jean Luc gestured for me to go deeper into the house, and I acquiesced. “They are also well,” he said.

“What happened to them? During the... mess… they all disappeared.”

“Yes, they lured some of the vampires away from the house, splitting the attacking force so their numbers might be more easily managed.”

“I wouldn’t say anything about that night was easy.”

“It wasn’t, but it could have been worse. We should count ourselves lucky there was only one casualty.”

Hearing Remy being spoken of like that stung, but I was able to hide my wince well enough. “Yeah,” I said, “Lucky.”

He motioned me through a door on my left, and I entered what looked like a living room. The moss colored thick shades that he must have used to block out the daylight were still down. Pictures of hills and oceans hung on the walls, a piano sat at the other end of the room next to a fireplace, and standing like macabre statues around the dining table were Sebastien, Philippe, and Delphine. The other vampires weren’t present.

“Hi,” I said, waving meekly.

The two men nodded, while Delphine approached and took one of my hands. “I am so relieved you weren’t hurt.”

“Thank you. It was close, but I’m glad you weren’t hurt either.”

“I want to apologize for my behavior. I don’t expect you’ll understand how I was feeling, but I promise it will not happen again.”

“It’s okay, we were all scared.”

Delphine then returned to the dining table. Jean Luc motioned for me to sit on one of the sofas in front of the cold, black fireplace, and I did. It was comfortable enough, but I sat straight, back upright, hands on my lap.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Jean Luc said, “I cannot say Remy was a good man, not entirely, but he did do some good things at the end of his life. If redemption is what he sought, he had put himself on the right path.”

“I feel… I feel the same way, but I’m also going to miss him.”

I didn’t want to tell Jean Luc of my private lessons with Remy, about how he had taken me on as a student of magick—of his magick. I didn’t think it was relevant information, anyway. That Remy had donated his house, his time, and had poured his efforts into restoring the witching community of New Orleans was enough for most people to know about him.

“What Marie did was unforgivable.”

“Marie? That’s her name.”

“Yes. Marie Boucher. She was a wealthy woman in life, and an even wealthier woman in death. Her goal was to buy as much of New Orleans as she could get her hands on, and when Remy rose up against the vampire overlords of the land, she lost everything she had spent hundreds of years trying to build. Her wrath runs deep.”

“Well, so does mine,” I said, without thinking. “I’ve had it with old women coming into the city demanding what’s theirs. This is our home. People are dead and injured. It has to stop.”

“I agree.”

“So, you’ll help me find Marie?”

“Absolutely not.”

Angry heat began to rise into my cheeks. He had done this once before when Bernarde was alive and killing people. His priority had been keeping me out of danger, out of trouble. I had thought by now he would have grown out of that overprotectiveness, but here it was, manifest in the flesh, ready to wrap me up in a straitjacket and throw me into a padded, white room to keep me from hurting myself.

“You can’t keep me from her, Jean Luc.”

“I’m not trying to, but I know you well enough to know the way your mind works. You’re emotional, and you would sooner throw yourself into the fire without considering the consequences.”

“She has to pay for what she did.”

“She does, but in order to defeat her and her brood, we must call the witches and form a unified front. If you were to call a meeting, somewhere private, we could all discuss—”

“There won’t be a meeting,” I said, turning my eyes away from him.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“They’ve abandoned me, Jean Luc.”

“Abandoned? Who?”

I looked at him again. “The witches. They’ve sided with a witch named Tamara; she’s Remy’s ex-wife, and she wants things to go back to how it was before I moved here. She wants to make New Orleans a witch only city.

“That’s absurd,” Delphine said, from the other side of the room. “Who is she to make that claim?”

“Delphine, please,” Jean Luc said. “I need to understand. You are saying the witches of New Orleans want all vampires gone—including us. Does that mean you’ll be hunting us also?”

“No!” I snapped, “Of course not. I fought for you, Jean Luc. For you and your family. But they wouldn’t listen to me. Not even Nicole listened to me.”

“Nicole has sided with Tamara?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m on my own now, so there won’t be any meetings, or any witches helping. I’m the only witch you have to help fight Marie away. Maybe, if we’re able to do it before Tamara gets what she wants, we can restore order to the city.”