Part 9 (1/2)
Alain raised a brow, and she flushed, feeling unaccountably guilty. As if she had taken something that wasn't hers.
”I wonder if we should bother trying to read Louise and Mathilde's bodies,” Georges said. ”It doesn't sound as if we can trust D'Artagnon.”
”They probably burned up in the fire,” Maurice ventured.
”Oui, monsieur, they did. And they were tasty,” said a silky voice from the shadows.
”Who's there?” Izzy shouted, whirling around.
”Caresse,” Alain said, smiling. ”She's Andre's mate. And a friend.”
”Have you found Andre?” Izzy cried.
Branches bobbed; red eyes glowed from the darkness. They disappeared. A few seconds later a sinewy, naked woman with dark skin, golden eyes and platinum-blond hair sauntered into view.
”C'est la jolie maitresse,” she said. ”Oui, Isabelle. He was badly hurt, but he's getting better. We have sent for a bokor to hurry it up. She's coming to our place.”
Her features softened as an idea came to her. ”We could shelter madame from all her enemies there. You can leave some bodyguards and make some more magic there, oui?” she asked Alain. ”Make some healing magic for Andre, too?”
”The thought to take madame to your camp had occurred to me,” Alain admitted. ”But it could be very dangerous.”
”We know it's dangereuse in the bayou,” Caresse retorted. ”It would be so much better if we could shelter her in the mansion. But the Bouvards do not welcome us. C'est la vie. They do not welcome her, either.”
”You're very clever, Caresse,” Alain said. ”You give madame a place to stay, which of course must be heavily guarded. And so, your wolf pack is protected from Le Fils and Esposito's henchmen.”
She winked at him. ”It is clear to me why you are the diplomat.”
Izzy took a breath and said, ”Did you...did you really eat them?”
Caresse chuckled. ”What do you think, ma belle?”
I think you didn't answer my question, Izzy thought.
Caresse swung back around and whistled. A half-standing, hunched wolf form padded from the same dark place she had appeared and stared at Izzy. The black fur, the almond-shaped, golden eyes....
”Andre!” she cried, running toward the wolf. She rose on her tiptoes and threw her arms around its neck.
”Not my Andre,” Caresse said, amused. ”A pack mate. We call him Lucky. When Andre cannot run, he is our alpha.”
”Oh.” As Izzy took a step backward, the creature's eyes glittered with good humor.
Another darted from the darkness. Then another slunk from around a tree trunk; a fourth appeared behind it. A fifth. These were more like regular wolves. Of all of them, Lucky was the most like Andre-something more than a wolf, something like a monster.
Caresse said, ”We should go to our place, us. Now. The swamp is full of Le Fils's vampires and demons. More are on their way.” She beckoned Izzy and the three Devereauxes to follow her.
Izzy said, ”Shouldn't we perform wards, or-”
”We've been performing wards the entire time we've been with you,” Georges said. ”We won't stop now.”
”As for us, we'll travel strong,” Caresse said.
She chuckled low in her throat as she dropped to all fours. Fur sprouted along the ridge on her back. Her ears stretched; her entire head elongated. She was transforming into a wolf before Izzy's eyes, as Andre had.
But where Andre had changed into something else, Caresse became a full wolf. She gazed over her shoulder at Izzy and chuffed like a dog.
Beside Izzy, the three Devereauxes were also changing into wolves.
Glamours? she wondered. Or were they actually werewolves?
Then she looked down at her own body and saw a strange superimposition, like a ghostly reflection, of paws and fur...paws that were padding along the bayou's damp ground. She touched her face with human hands, her own fingertips. But when she looked down, she saw paws, on the ground. A powerful glamour indeed.
And so I'm on the run again, she thought. I haven't stopped running for over two weeks. And people-or things-have been trying to kill me for over two weeks.
When will this end? And how?
Dawn was was.h.i.+ng the darkness from the sky when Izzy and the others came within sight of the werewolves' compound. The smoke from the bayou fire was dissipating. The whump-whump-whump of the copter rotors had left the sky, as well.
Slowly each wolf transformed back into a human being, and Izzy recognized the pack from New York City. Izzy was startled to realize that Claire, the woman with the cornrows who had served on occasion as Jean-Marc's driver, was the silver wolf that had trotted beside her during the night.
Claire had been one of the werewolves to sneak into the DeMarcos home and corner John Cratty. Rather than allow the wolves to rip him to shreds, Cratty had ended his own life with a bullet from Izzy's Medusa. It had been a horrible, ghoulish undertaking-and yet Izzy was incredibly glad to see Claire. Izzy was cast adrift in a sea of strangers, and Claire was a familiar face.
As she a.s.sumed her human shape, Claire grinned at Izzy and said, ”ca va, jolie?”
”I've been better,” Izzy answered.
Claire made a moue and patted Izzy's shoulder. ”We'll treat you well here. Not so much like a queen as like a friend. You saved Jean-Marc's life. That counts big with us.”
”Thank you,” Izzy said. ”But it was really Andre who made it happen.”
”Well, he is taking a lot of the credit,” Claire replied with a l.u.s.ty chuckle.
”Tais-toi,” Caresse told Claire, but her voice was warm. ”He does go on, that man,” she said, grinning. ”He can't wait to see you, chere.”
A tall wooden fence lined with bones and skulls and painted with symbols-swirls, stars, skulls, figures of people-marked the perimeter of the werewolves' compound. Izzy wasn't sure what they were bones and skulls of, and she didn't want to know.
The three Devereauxes stopped there. Alain explained that they had placed Devereaux wards around the fence upon first arriving in New Orleans, and they periodically refreshed them. They were going to do that now-and add more, as well.
The werewolves lived in Cajun shacks along the banks of the bayou. Izzy wished she could call them picturesque, but they were ramshackle structures patched together out of mismatched pieces of wood, and topped with corrugated tin roofs. The closest she could get was ”functional.”
Caresse took Izzy's hand and said, ”Let's go see my man, you and me, chere.”
As they neared a shack hanging over the water, a toddler in a diaper and a T-s.h.i.+rt that said I Love NY appeared in the doorway. He burst into tears when he saw Caresse and held his arms out to her.
”You,” she said lovingly as she hoisted him up and settled him against her hip. ”All night I'm gone and I'll bet you never cried one time.”
”He never stopped crying,” said a familiar voice.
The voice issued from the overstuffed depths of a red velvet sofa, incongruous in the extreme in the rustic shack. Andre was lying on it, his wildman hair streaming over his shoulders, a colorful quilt pulled up under his arms. He was wearing several necklaces of small bags, and a pile of small stone hearts painted red were gathered in his lap.