Chapter 2 Kayla #2
I climbed the rickety old steps. Rust joined the wrought iron to the wall more than any bolts that might have been used originally, and I was careful not to rest too much weight on anything.
Lettie’s small balcony seemed in as bad condition as the staircase, and I tapped on her apartment door, ready to be let inside and off this levitating deathtrap.
It was probably only held up by Lettie’s sheer force of will and magic.
There was no reply, and I bent to the small window next to the door, cupping my hands around my face again as I looked through the glass.
Everything looked…strangely abandoned. Certainly not like Lettie had just popped out for a moment or was in another room.
There was an air of emptiness, something I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
But the tiny space no longer looked lived in.
I tucked my hair behind my ear, fed up with the unruly curls that wouldn’t stay out of my face for five New York seconds, never mind a full minute, before knocking again, desperately pushing away my gnawing instinct that something was wrong.
When she still didn’t answer, I walked carefully back down the steps and surveyed the apartment from the ground. Nothing moved. Not even a shadow crossed the window. It wasn’t like Lettie just wasn’t home — it really was as if she was gone.
I reached for my cell phone, dislodging Sebastian Dupont’s business card from my pocket at the same time.
It fluttered to the ground then lay flat and still like it was staring back at me.
I picked it up and shoved it away again, uncaring that at least one of the perfect corners crumpled under the force of my impatience.
I scrolled through my contacts until I found Naomi. After hitting the button to call her, I propped my phone against my ear with my shoulder as I searched through my purse for some gum.
“Kayla,” Naomi greeted me. “When did you get back?”
I waved my hand in a gesture of dismissal that she couldn’t see.
My “trip” was the furthest thing from my mind right now.
I’d been lying low after hearing rumors of trouble brewing between the Duponts and Ricards, but now I’d arrived back to a new fucking shitstorm of a mess right here on my doorstep, it felt like.
“Where’s Lettie?” I fired a question right back.
“I’m at her place and there’s no one here.
I need to see her because a) I just got back from a trip and I have a…
a medical need for a spell, and b) I also have a couple of questions for her about the power change.
” I listed my reasons for seeing Lettie, except where she’d gone was now more pressing than any of my own problems.
Naomi yawned. “Yeah, I’m running a bit late today. I was supposed to get the shop open a while ago.” She paused. “But actually, why don’t you come over here to my place? There’s a lot we need to talk about.”
“Like what?” I didn’t have time for side tours around the city.
I wanted to find Lettie. Plus I needed to find a way to earn some fast cash, seeing as my job appeared to have dropped off a Sebastian Dupont-shaped cliff.
Naomi yawned again. “Just come over. There’s a lot of shit you probably need to know. I’ll get dressed.” Then she hung up before I could say anything else, and I stared at my phone for a moment before sliding it back into my pocket.
Well, shit. The Neutral Zone under new ownership, no job, no Lettie, Lettie’s spell about to run out in a city of vampires, a summons from Naomi…
something was definitely wrong in New Orleans.
I shivered as a sense of foreboding rolled over me before I made my way back through the short, narrow passage and out into a sun-soaked street full of milling, oblivious tourists.
Naomi’s place was really only a short walk away, tucked up a side street.
She’d glamoured it not to be noticed by most people — they’d walk right by — but I stopped to smell the soft scent of the pretty little flowers in her window box before knocking on her door.
She opened it almost immediately as if she’d been waiting just behind it.
She practically dragged me inside then pulled me into a hug. “Look at you,” she said. “You look so…” She stopped and eyed me critically, drawing her brow down. “You look so rested.”
I laughed. “Yeah, maybe until I got back and my fucking life fell apart. I don’t think I’ve even got a job anymore.”
She grimaced. “The new guys?”
“Guys? I only met one guy. Another fucking bloodsucker.” I slipped my shoes off and left them and my purse in her small hallway before wandering barefoot to her sofa.
“Which one did you meet?” She joined me and handed me one of the glasses of water she had ready on a nearby table.
I made a show of dragging the business card from my pocket, even though his name was practically seared onto my brain.
Sebastian Dupont. I didn’t say it right away, though.
Instead, I squinted at the card like I needed to read it and let his name roll through my head like a wave on a tranquil sea. Something about it calmed me.
“Says his name’s Sebastian.” I handed her the card so she could verify that information for herself.
She took it by one of the uncrushed corners and her lips formed a small ‘o.’ After a moment, she glanced up at me then back down to the card, like even the vampire’s damn name held the power of enchantment or compulsion. “That’s the new king’s brother.”
“The king of Baton Rouge?” I didn’t know a whole lot about him, but I was aware enough of the tensions that had simmered between his royal line and the Ricards for generations.
Naomi nodded. “Yeah. And he’s sent his brother, this guy—to get everything in order.” She waved the business card briefly as she curled her lip. “Or something like that.”
“Really.” It wasn’t a question, but I raised my eyebrow anyway. Some Baton Rouge prince had been sent to New Orleans to establish order? They obviously didn’t know a great deal about how feral we all were over here.
And we fucking liked it that way. This wouldn’t go down well. Establishing any kind of order, imposing it, wouldn’t happen without a fight. Not if I knew New Orleans. I shrugged at my own thoughts. Still, it wasn’t any of my damn business. My association with the new guy was precisely nothing.
Or eighty percent nothing I was pretty sure, anyway.
“They’re working with the wolves.” Naomi almost whispered this piece of news.
“Really?” This time it was a question, and my surprise was on full display.
Vampires never worked well with anyone. Usually not even other vampires.
She nodded. “émile will be rolling in his grave.”
I didn’t comment, liking the idea of émile being in his final grave too much. We sat in silence for a moment, and I sipped my ice water as I tried to marshal my thoughts. It really had been a doozy of a day so far.
“No job.” I dropped my head back against the cushion behind me. “Still can’t believe it.” I side-eyed her. “And why are you in charge of opening Lettie’s shop?”
Lettie ordinarily wouldn’t leave Naomi in charge of opening a box of cookies.
Naomi shrugged, the movement expansive but equally vague. “She’s not here.”
I rolled my eyes at the obvious part about her not being here but… “For how long?” That she would go away for any length of time was unheard of. Lettie was an actual fixture in our community — it wasn’t just me who loved her. “You can’t just say she’s not here. Where the fuck is she?”
Naomi shrugged again. “Well.” She leaned closer. “Rumor is that she was helping the king or his son and she just didn’t come back. No one has heard from her since.”
“What?” That seemed to be the only appropriate word for right now.
It expressed everything — from my disbelief to my righteous indignation.
“So no one has heard from her and no one’s thought to check where she is or even if she’s okay?
Or if she was actually helping émile and Francois?
Really?” That just sounded so…so unlikely.
Sure, Lettie would do them enough favors to keep them on her side but never anything with enough danger that I’d need to worry about her.
Naomi lifted her shoulders like she might shrug again before letting them drop, the movement incomplete.
My mind went to the darkest places first. “What if she was taken prisoner or even killed?” I mean, I often took trips until the dust settled when I did something that had annoyed one of the covens on behalf of the Ricards, but I’d never known Lettie to leave New Orleans, and I was pretty damn sure it wasn’t something she’d do of her own free will.
“Do you really think so?” Naomi wrinkled her nose, her doubt plain to see. “Lettie is…” She stopped. “She’s old.”
Naomi had said old, but I knew what she really meant was powerful. Everlasting. Fucking invincible. It was unthinkable that Lettie wasn’t here right now, running her shop and overseeing the witchy underbelly of New Orleans.
Frustration forced my next words out. “Well, what do you think might have happened? You’re looking after her shop, but do you know how long for?
Has she sent any sort of word to you at all?
Have you heard any damn thing from her? An instruction?
A direction? A command?” Lettie would have never just left her shop in Naomi’s hands without some degree of micromanagement taking place. It just wouldn’t have happened.
Lettie trusted no one but Lettie, and that philosophy had served her well all of these years.
The gears in Naomi’s head seemed slow to turn, and I sat back and watched, able to see nearly every thought as she processed it.
“I haven’t heard a thing from her,” she said finally, like this was some sort of new revelation.
“And?” I prompted. “Would Lettie usually leave you to do your own thing with no input at all?”
“God, no.” Naomi laughed. “She doesn’t usually let me change a light bulb unsupervised.”
“And what have you been doing in the shop while you haven’t heard from her?”