11. Eleven
ELEVEN
Dora Landry was a pain. Ofelia had been sparring with the woman for as long as she could remember. When she was younger, just getting into the witch game, Ofelia could never understand the older witch’s animosity. Now she did.
Dora had been the most powerful witch in the city, probably even the state, for decades. When Ofelia came on the scene, a witch with no family pedigree, she’d been considered a threat. Dora wanted to keep her throne after all.
Grudgingly, the women started making inroads with one another. They weren’t exactly friends now. They could work with one another when specific situations arose.
That’s why, when Dora agreed to come with her potion bag, Ofelia wasn’t surprised as much as grateful.
Sully was the one who met Dora in the parking garage. He didn’t smile as she approached, just nodded. “Thank you for coming.”
Dora gestured toward the Jeep Cherokee in the parking spot nearest to the door. “He’s with me. Can he park there?”
Sully peered through the driver’s side window and took in the very large man behind the wheel. He recognized right away that Dora’s companion was a gator shifter. “You brought your own muscle?”
Dora snorted. “I’m not stupid.”
“He can come up if you feel more secure with him being close.”
The offer threw Dora. “Seriously?”
“Yup.” Sully bobbed his head. “You’re doing us a favor.”
“Okay, then.” Dora motioned for the gator shifter to join them.
Sully was not a small man. He was tall — not basketball player tall, but tall all the same — but he looked like a child next to the approaching gator shifter. “Holy crap,” he muttered. “He must shift into the biggest alligator in the world.”
“I told him he looks like that one from that great movie with Betty White — you know the one where they’ve taken over the lake? — but he doesn’t find me funny.” Dora chuckled. “I made him watch the movie and everything, and do you know what he said?”
“That it was crocodiles in the movie?” Sully guessed.
He’d seen it too. Once, on a Sunday when he and Ofelia were spending the day in bed, they stumbled over the movie being advertised on Netflix.
They’d stopped long enough to make fun of the movie and then accidentally watched the entire thing. It wasn’t as bad as he was expecting.
“Man, what is it with you guys taking the joy out of life?” Dora complained as she clutched her oversized bag tighter. “Crocodiles. Alligators. They’re basically the same.”
Sully flicked his eyes to the big gator shifter and found him frowning. “Yeah, I don’t think they are. Thank you for coming, though.” He extended his hand in greeting to the other shifter. There was no reason for things to be unfriendly. “I’m Zach Sully.”
The gator made a grunting sound and shook his hand. “They call me Rook.”
They call me. Even if Sully hadn’t been a police detective, he could have read between the lines of that statement.
The gator shifter wasn’t comfortable giving his real name.
He went by a street name, which was usually a sign that there was some sort of gang activity afoot.
That was dead low on Sully’s list of worries at present, so he let it go.
“This way.” He motioned for them to follow him inside.
The lobby area was still under construction and didn’t look like much.
Sully didn’t miss the way Dora’s eyes roamed the space, however.
She looked impressed. “It’s a work in progress,” he explained.
“The whole building is being gutted, and since dust falls …” He trailed off and held out his hands in a “what are you gonna do” gesture.
“I get it,” Dora said. “She’s being smart about it. The construction is starting high and going low.” She paused. “Is she going to have apartments here and businesses, or just apartments?”
“It will be mixed use,” Sully replied as he jabbed the button to call the elevator.
There were two others down a hallway, but they weren’t operational yet.
“She plans on having shops and galleries on the first two floors, maybe a floor of businesses — like insurance and real estate offices, nothing industrial — and then everything else will be apartments on the other floors.”
“It’s a great building,” Rook mused. “It has all of the old architecture, which is rare to see these days. Most people just come in and knock down the old buildings.”
“Ofelia didn’t want to do that.” Sully led them into the elevator and pressed another button.
“She loves old architecture. When she redid Krewe’s building, she kept the outside the same.
Well, as much as possible. There were a few codes that required attention.
For the most part, though, other than being freshened up, the outside of the building is the same. ”
“It looks good.” Rook managed a smile, but it was more feral than friendly. Sully decided that was just how his face operated.
“You said she,” Dora interjected.
“Hmm?” Sully moved his eyes to her as the elevator doors slid shut.
“You said that she redid the second floor of the Krewe building and she kept the outside the same. You had a hand in it, though. Why don’t you say ‘we’?”
Sully was not expecting the question. “Oh, well …” He debated how to respond.
“This is her baby,” he said finally. “She has been planning this project for years. It’s not my project.
I have no intention of stealing the glory from her.
Everything that happens with this building will be because of her. ”
“But you helped with the money,” Dora pushed.
Sully’s lips curved down. “This is her victory.” He was insistent.
Rather than argue and make matters worse, Dora sighed. “I didn’t get it before,” she said. “What she saw in you, I mean.”
Sully didn’t know if he should laugh or roll his eyes. He did nothing.
“I thought she could do better,” Dora continued. “I figured she would try to go for someone powerful.”
“Like Sebastian?” Sully’s scowl was pronounced as he said the name of Ofelia’s ex-boyfriend.
Sebastian Gendry had been a powerful warlock who caused a lot of trouble in the Quarter.
Now he was rotting in a jail cell. Sully had purchased his bar at a pittance and set Felix up in it so he could eventually buy it and run his own bar. So far, it was going well.
Dora shrugged. “You might not have liked the guy —”
“He was a tool,” Sully replied.
She smirked. “His personality left a little to be desired,” she conceded.
“He was powerful, though. That’s why he latched onto Ofelia in the first place.
She never loved him. I think, for a time, she thought she was supposed to fall for a guy like him.
She realized relatively quickly that she was the power in that relationship. ”
“I don’t like talking about Sebastian,” Sully admitted.
“Sorry.” Dora didn’t look sorry. “I’m just saying that you’re the perfect match for her.
You bolster her when she needs it and step in when she doesn’t want to hear it.
She probably has a tendency to shut others out when she commits to a path.
She doesn’t do that with you, though. She values your input. ”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of input to offer her right now.” Sully led them toward the room. “She can’t lose Angelique.” He was matter-of-fact when delivering the news. “We have to figure something out here.”
“Well, I have some help,” Dora said as Sully led them into the room. Her eyes immediately went to Ofelia and Ben, who were in chairs next to Angelique’s bed, watching the siren sleep. “It’s not enough to cure her, though.”
Ofelia jerked up her chin at the words. “What do you have?”
“I can slow down the transformation,” Dora replied as she moved forward without invitation.
Her expression was full of pity when she stopped at the foot of the air mattress to look down at Angelique.
“She’s definitely transitioning,” she said after several seconds of quiet.
“How many hours has it been since she was scratched?”
There was no clock on the wall, so Ofelia had to pull out her phone to check. “Just short of 24 hours,” she replied when she’d done the math.
“So, whoever infected her was powerful,” Dora mused. “Do we think she’s fighting the transformation?”
“Yes,” Ben replied, annoyance twisting his features. “Of course she is.”
“She doesn’t want to be a banshee,” Ofelia assured the older witch. “She told me to kill her if she transformed.”
“And will you be able to do that?”
“It’s not coming to that,” Sully replied before Ofelia could snap out something nasty. He sent his fiancée a warning look before focusing on Dora. “Don’t bait her. She’s having a rough time of it.”
“You are zero fun,” Dora complained. “Maybe I was wrong earlier when I said that you were a good choice for her.”
Sully shook his head. “Just help Angelique.” He pointed toward the bed.
“Fine.” Dora put down her bag at the end of the bed. “This potion needs to go in intravenously.”
Ofelia scrambled to her feet to help. “How come?”
“Because it needs to go right into her blood to work. You’re going to have to give it to her every six hours. It will slow the transition but not stop it.”
“How much time do we have?” Ben asked.
Dora opened her mouth, then shut it, clearly reticent to give them a timetable.
“Tell us the truth,” Ofelia ordered. “We need to know.”
“I would say you have about 24 to 36 hours until she transitions.” Dora’s eyes were flat. “No more than that.”
Ofelia’s heart sank. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “What do I do?”
“Kill the banshee,” Dora replied. “If you kill the one who infected her before she transitions, the transition will stop.”
Ofelia balked. “I’ve never heard that.”
“It’s not something they spread around.”
“It has to be the exact one that infected her, right?” Sully pressed. “It can’t be anybody else from the pack, can it?”
“No, although I’ve never heard of banshees running around in packs. Sometimes there are three of them because they can better balance their power that way. It’s never more than that.”