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The officer pushed a button, activating some sort of intercom on the desk. A few moments later, the loud clank of the steel door unlocking heralded the arrival of Gary Broussard.
“Strange to see you without a corpse you’re trying to explain away,” he teased. At the same time, he looked pointed up and to his left. A camera in the wall was recording our conversation.
I gave a quick nod. I guess his official report didn’t mention seeing me at the Hebert house. “Aw, Gary, do you miss seeing me?”
“Nah. I was telling myself you got smart and stopped hunting.”
“But?” I asked.
“Saw the calendar, realized it was the holidays. Not as much fanger activity over the holiday.” Gary motioned for me to walk through a doorway. “But now Carnival season is here, I bet I’ll get to see you right regular . . .”
I shrugged. Sometimes, I swore Carnival season was Darwinism in action. Dumb asses arrived here by the busload, and we never needed as many buses to send them home afterward. Humans, apparently, weren’t the only ones who celebrated a bit of excess before Lent.
“Imagine my surprise when we got a grant for keeping tourists alive.” Gary met my eyes. “Anyone want you on the streets that I ought to know about?”
I shrugged again. The recent attempt on my life wasn’t a detail I shared freely, and my ability to piss off a racist organization that had drawn in a lot of wealthy families might be a factor. Of course, I couldn’t completely discount the King ofElphame—or a few of the rejected fae women who were irritated that their beloved prince was off the market because of me.
“Nothing comes to mind as a clear suspect,” I hedged.
“So, more than a few possibilities, eh?” Gary rubbed his face as if he could wipe his worry away, but he said nothing else until we were at a conference room I wouldn’t have imagined in a police office.
He shut the door. “Everything is recorded out there. A few people will be in shortly, but what I can tell you, Geneviève, is that the department will get a chunk of much needed cashandmoney to hire you. Someone wants you on the street during the season. After that crow business . . .”
“I don’t know who or why,” I admitted truthfully.
Gary glanced at the door. “Dead box of crow heads, kid. That’s not accidental. They’ll pitch civic duty, tight budget, and . . . just, if it’s going to get you killed, kid, turn them down.”
Then the police chief, mayor, and a few pencil-pushers came in.
“Mayor Randulf,” I said politely. I didn’t know the mayor, but he’d taken the helm and handled the city with what seemed like minimal corruption, so I liked him as well as any politician.
“Gen,” another voice greeted from the door.
“Mr. Chaddock, I didn’t realize you were . . . back,” I managed to say.
Tres Chaddock, Ally’s stepson and former classmate at university, stood in the doorway looking like a perfectly pressed businessman. Only Eli and I knew he was dead.
“I arrived this morning.” Tres stepped into the room and reached out as if to take my hand. He stumbled as he reached for me.
I jerked away before he could touch me. Tres Chaddock had been peculiar before he died. Since then, he’d been exceedingly difficult. Maybe I had no interest in touching the man whose un-life I’d had to consider far too often. He’d been murdered and in his dying moments, Ally had “jabbed him” with a syringe ofdraugrvenom.
Had I been cruel, I’d have let him stay dead, beheaded him, or obeyed the law and had him sent to a T-Cell House where the newly awakened were stored until they were in control of their senses.
But guilt and misplaced kindness had me waking him in a way that—to the best of my knowledge—was an offshoot of necromancy. So, I revived him, and now he was my burden. And like the mature adult I should be, I promptly ran, so Tres was doing his best not to aggravate me even though his entire being was keyed to my happiness. He was, bluntly, my minion.
And I didn’t want him.
“I understand that my step-mother has been working with you,” he said, hurt thrumming in his voice. Tres stumbled again, lurching into the table.
“Mr. Chaddock, we have a meeting now. Perhaps, you might chat with Ms. Crowe later,” Eli interjected into the tension, diffusing it quickly.
I shoved a small pulse of magic at Tres, emphasizing Eli’s words. Tres flinched—although no one there could tell what I’d done to Tres. It wasn’t painful, just the same necromancy I used on walking corpses when I woke them. It was either that or get mauled by the dead.
“Anything Gen wants,” Tres offered agreeably, watching me the way starving people might watch food. Fervently, he said, “Always at your service.”
“So,” Gary said loudly. “Mayor. Chief. This is Miss Crowe. She’s the witch who has so generously provided the bullets that have increased our life expectancy around here.”
The mayor stepped up like he wanted to shake my hand, but he hesitated. “Miss Crowe.”
