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“You a mage, son?”
Adam’s head swiveled slowly on his neck. “What’s it to you?”
I shot Adam a look. The last thing I needed was for him to piss off my blood supplier.
“Just making conversation. Most of your kind hightailed it outta here a few days ago. Oddest thing. One day they’re going about their biddness and the next thing, poof, all gone.”
“That’s interesting,” Adam said evenly.
“Alodius? Can I ask you a question?” I jumped in to prevent any further probing.
“Shoot.”
“You’re human, right?”
“No, darlin’.” He chuckled from low in his belly. “Alodius ain’t just human. He’s Cajun.”
I frowned at the odd man’s insistence on referring to himself in the third person. “Okay, so how exactly does a Cajun end up serving cow’s blood to vampires? Most people would freak if they knew they had a vampire in their store.”
“Darlin’, this is N’Awlins,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Yeah, but—”
“Y’all got to understand. People down here? We been raised hearing stories from our Mameres ’bout ghosts and voodoo. So when old Alodius got older and learned the world is chockablock with vampires and other magic things?” His shrug was decidedly Gallic. “’Course it helps that selling blood and raw meat to your kind brought Big Poppa some sweet Mameaux .” As he drawled out the words, he lazily dragged his right thumb across his fingers.
“Ah,” I said.
He handed over a plastic bag filled with two plastictubs of blood. “Speaking of, cher , there’s more where that come from.” He grabbed a magnet shaped like a kielbasa from the top of the raised counter. “This here’s got Alodius’s number. You call him anytime and he’ll fix you up proper.”
I nodded my thanks and stuck the magnet in my back pocket. “Thanks, Mr. Thibodeaux.”
He waved the air like he was trying to shoo a fly. “Mr. Thibodeaux was our father. It’s Alodius.” He winked at me like a conspirator. “Or Big Poppa.”
I squinted, trying to wade through the pronoun soup. And wondering if I dared ask why he called himself Big Poppa. He seemed nice enough, but I was beginning to wonder if this odd Cajun was a few shrimp short of gumbo.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Alodius, then.”
“Y’all sure you don’t want some boudin to go with that blood? Maybe Madam Z can cook y’all up some dirty rice?”
After he rung up the blood and the pound of sausage he’d talked us into, Adam threw some money at the crazy Cajun and pushed me out the door. As the bell dinged again, Alodius called out: “Y’all don’t be strangers, y’hear?”
“That guy was weird,” Adam said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought he was friendly.” I swung the plastic bag as we strolled. Despite the worries hanging over me, I felt optimistic for some reason. Maybe it was the beautiful night. Or the bag of blood in my hands. Or the hot mage walking beside me. Either way, I was determined to make the most of the few moments of peace I could get.
I took a deep breath and tried to enjoy the parade of Greek Revivals, Italianates, and Queen Anne Victorians on display. Up ahead, the sidewalk buckled where the roots of an ancient oak had protested being smothered with concrete. When we reached it, I stepped over. But Adam had been too busy watching for attack to notice the crack. He ended up sprawled on the pavement at my feet.
“Oops, sorry,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Should have warned you.”
He grimaced and dusted off his pants with as much dignity as he could muster. Before he could retort, a shriek ripped through the night. We went still. My heart ran laps around my chest. My eyes narrowed.
Fucking Stryx.
“Shit,” Adam said under his breath. He ducked down as if expected the owl to dive-bomb at any moment. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“Do you see him?” I said, crouching next to the mancy.
Out of nowhere, a flash of white zoomed in from the right. A blur of beak and talons flashed. Adam jerked away with a curse. A streak of blood ran down his cheek.
“That’s it. I’m killing that bird right f**king now.” My eyes scanned the branches overhead for a pair of glowing red eyes or a mass of white feathers. I pointed to an upper limb. “There.” I grabbed for my gun.
“Sabiiiiina!” the owl screeched. The hairs on my neck prickled. He rose like a ghost from the tree. I tracked him with the muzzle of my gun, ready to finish the job I’d started in New York. He flew in circles, taunting me. “Sabiiiiiina!”
At the last moment, Adam put a hand over mine. “Wait, maybe we should try to catch him and see if he can tell us anything about Lavinia’s plans.”
“Adam, he’s an owl. What’s he going to tell us?”
The mage shrugged. “Maybe we could use him as a bargaining tool.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right, because Lavinia will totally barter the Oracle of New York for an owl. Come on, Adam.”
“Look, he works for the Caste, right? Maybe he’s got some value or something. We need every advantage we can get. Or has it escaped your attention that we still have no idea where Lavinia’s keeping Maisie?”
I cringed inwardly. Of course it hadn’t escaped my notice. I berated myself hourly for that fact. “Fine. Do your best, magic man,”
Adam slowly rose from his crouch. Stryx broke out of his circle and shot off into the night like a bullet.
“Shit! Let’s go,” I said, already running. Adam kept up, muttering something under his breath. A laserlike flash of magic shot through the air. The hair on my arms prickled as the shot went wide. The owl’s hoot sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Unfortunately for the bird, this only served to piss the mage off even more. Adam dug in, picking up speed even as he raised his hands and shouted, “Zi dingir anna, keshada, Stryx !”
The owl’s latest screech cut off like someone pulling a needle from a record. His white body nosedived to the ground and disappeared into a group of shrubs along the garden wall of one of the mansions. We high-fived before zooming to retrieve our feathered captive.
Adam pushed the branches aside to reveal Stryx’s inert body. “Is he dead?” I whispered.
He grabbed the owl by its legs. Its head hung just a couple inches over the sidewalk. Unmoving and spookier than ever with its sightless red eyes.
