Page 92 of Xavier

Lissette settled against Xavier, closing her eyes. The storm raged around them, but they remained safe, cocooned in the bunker.

She must have slept because the next time she opened her eyes, someone had opened the door. Cool, fresh air filtered into the bunker.

Xavier wasn’t next to her.

She sat up and made her way down the steps to stand next to Xavier. The steel door opened onto a lake bathed in moonlight.

Nothing remained of the metal building, the stacks of crates holding the stolen reliquaries, and the men who’d died defending their mafia boss.

Also gone were the boats they’d arrived in.

“Shelby and Swede know where we are,” Xavier said. “They’ll send someone out to get us.”

Lissette leaned into him. “We’re not lost.”

“No,” he said. “We’ve found our way home.”

Lissette raised her wrist to the moonlight, a smile spreading across her face as her spell echoed in her memory. It had worked after all.

* * *

Bring the lost home

Where they belong.

Epilogue

Five days later...

After the surge receded from what was left of Benoit’s island, the team, Madame Gautier and Lissette, emerged from the bunker and stared up at a crisp blue sky. With a sense of shock, they’d found that everything that had been the camp, including the people who’d died in the fire fight, had disappeared, except for the concrete bunker that had sheltered them from the storm.

Grand-mère called it a cleansing.

Xavier agreed.

Shelby had arranged for boats to be sent to the coordinates marked by Lissette’s ankle monitor. She’d arrived with the boats to take statements about what had happened. Mostly, she’d come to reassure herself that Remy was alive and well.

The next few days were spent sorting through the damage to properties in and around Bayou Mambaloa, covering roofs with tarps, scooping out layers of silt deposited in some homes and businesses built in low-lying areas.

Everyone worked together, helping each other clean and rebuild their community.

The Crawdad Hole and Mimi’s Diner had sustained roof damage, but they were up and running on generators, providing meals for folks whose homes didn’t have power.

The high school gym provided shelter for families whose homes were not yet inhabitable. Several families with young children had moved into the boarding house.

Xavier didn’t mind the added noise. He’d been working long days and into the nights to get Madame Gautier’s house shored up by patching the roof and boarding two windows. Surprisingly, it had not sustained as much damage as other homes in the area.

Napoleon was back on duty, guarding the island again, and had only attacked Xavier twice. The fish net had come out a time or two to manage the grumpy rooster.

Once they had Madame Gautier settled, Xavier and Lissette stretched tarps over the roofs of Remedies and Roux and Mamba Wamba and a dozen other homes in the area, with Lissette working alongside him.

He’d called Jeffries as soon as they’d been rescued from Benoit’s camp and politely told him that he’d changed his mind and would be staying with his current employer, the Bayou Brotherhood Protectors.

Simon and Holly drove in from Atlanta as soon as the roads were cleared. Rafael and Gisele returned from Mexico two days later.

Hank Patterson and Sadie McClain had flown down that morning, after arranging for a crew out of Houston to deliver a dozen trucks full of food, clothing and building supplies.

A team of people arrived to set up giant tents, grills and picnic tables in the town square where festivals usually took place. They prepared enough food to serve the entire community, and a band set up on a portable stage.