This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress, #5)(37)
“My poor cat’s going to hate me for disappearing on him again,” I remarked just to break the tension. We’d left Helsing back in Ohio since it would be animal cruelty to try and tote him on the back of the Ducati. I’d intended to leave him at a nice pet resort, but oddly enough, Ed and Scratch insisted on watching him. Seems they considered kitty-sitting Helsing as the least they could do to demonstrate their new loyalty to Bones as their Master. Considering what had happened at the Ritz, I was glad that we hadn’t attempted to take my cat with us to New Orleans. If the hotel management had figured out that we’d been part of the elevator destruction yesterday, they might have seized Helsing and turned him over to the pound in retaliation.
Tate already placed a few calls to have the ghouls’ bodies from the elevator shaft shipped to him instead of the local morgue. Nothing made cops ask a lot of questions like having corpses dated to be decades or even centuries old turn up at a crime scene. Tate handled everything with perfect competence, but speaking to him instead of Don about crime scene containment was just another reminder of how serious my uncle’s condition was.
I shifted impatiently. I couldn’t spend time with my uncle until this situation with Apollyon was resolved, and Don didn’t have a lot of time left. Then there was my mother’s bright idea of painting a bull’s-eye on her ass by joining the team. Family. Villains had nothing on the stress my relatives could cause me.
Speaking of that, where was the ghoul who always accompanied Marie’s guests into the cemetery to see her? He should’ve been here ten minutes ago.
As if I’d summoned him, a familiar dark-skinned ghoul rounded the bend on the opposite corner, looking almost taken aback to see us waiting by the gates.
“Jacques,” Bones greeted the ghoul, casting a pointed look at the clock on his cell phone. “Didn’t interrupt you from having a bit of fun, did we?”
The ghoul’s face cleared by the time Bones finished speaking, until it was smooth as polished obsidian instead of registering surprise.
“Majestic did not know you’d returned to the city. She assumed your absence meant you’d canceled your meeting tonight.”
The barest smile flittered across Bones’s mouth. “We only just arrived a few minutes ago.”
Yep, and not by plane, boat, train, or automobile, either. Not after the now-headless ghoul told us his cronies were watching all those venues. Bones flew us in under his own power about ten minutes ago, landing on the roof of Saint Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square before we hopped down and walked the couple blocks to the cemetery. He hadn’t wanted me to try my wings again for this jaunt into the city. Something about conserving my energy for later. Under other circumstances, I’d think he meant that in a naughty way, but I knew he was referring to possibly fighting for our lives later, if things went awry. I knew which activity I’d rather be conserving my energy for, if I had control over my own life, but that hadn’t happened much lately.
“I will notify Majestic,” Jacques said, staying on the other side of the street. He pulled out his cell, speaking quietly into it, his words indiscernible amidst the other noises of the nearby French Quarter. Jazz Fest was getting under way in the next day or so, but from the swell of extra tourists, the city was starting the party early.
“Why’d he even come by, if he didn’t think we’d be here?” I whispered to Bones.
“Because Marie would make sure nothing was left to chance” was his equally soft reply.
That sounded like the infamous voodoo queen. She might look like a cross between Mrs. Butterworth and Angela Bassett, emitting matronliness or a take-no-prisoners attitude depending on her mood, but Marie Laveau was nothing if not meticulous. Figures I’d be seeing her again under the same circumstances that we’d first met—me trying to find out if she’d back an * in his claims against me. This time, however, the stakes were much higher than determining who I was married to according to vampire law. I’d ended up settling that matter rather decisively by blowing my ex-husband’s head off. If only I could do the same to Apollyon soon, I’d consider meetings with Marie as a good-luck omen.
“She will be here in twenty minutes,” Jacques announced, coming back over to us. Bones let out a snort.
“I should think so, after the trouble we’ve gone through to speak with her.”
Jacques didn’t reply to that. He hadn’t been much of a talker the last time I’d met him, either. After waiting the stated amount of time, Jacques opened the gates to the cemetery and I went inside, knowing where we were headed but willing to let him take the lead. The ghoul started to close the gate after me, but Bones’s hand shot out to stop him.
“I’m going with her.”
He frowned. “Majestic said she will meet with the Reaper first and you afterward.”
Bones smiled, an easy stretch of his mouth that made his features even more startlingly gorgeous, but his voice didn’t match his playboy good looks.
“Perhaps you misheard me. I’m going with her, and if you think to stop me, I’ll soon be decorating one of these gate spikes with your head.”
Jacques was at least twice the width of Bones and just as tall, so to an onlooker, if they fought, it would be a no-brainer who’d win. But the ghoul couldn’t match the power seething off Bones as he dropped his shields. It poured from him and fanned out to encompass the cemetery, making the sentient ghosts give him a more interested glance as it brushed across them.