Frenchman Street_A Novel of The Sentinels of New Orleans Read online

  Frenchman Street

  Frenchman Street

  The Sentinels of New Orleans

  Suzanne Johnson

  Suzanne Johnson

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  FRENCHMAN STREET

  Copyright © 2018 by Suzanne Johnson

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

  www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  To my faithful readers, who’ve stuck with DJ and

  the gang through these last six years, and to

  the people of Frenchmen Street

  (not Frenchman Street) in New Orleans.

  I do know the difference!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Suzanne Johnson

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  A half-dozen vampires stood in the churning surf of the Gulf of Mexico, moonlight reflecting off their bared fangs.

  I blinked at them a hot second before yelling as loud as I could: “Vamps incoming!”

  My voice didn’t carry well on this dark beach, but I was doing transport guard duty alone and I knew that, wherever they were on this godforsaken barrier island off the coast of Louisiana in the 1814 version of the otherworld, my shifter friends would hear me.

  You can always count on a shifter, even an aquatic one like my merman friend Rene Delachaise, to hear everything. Sometimes that’s a good thing; sometimes not.

  I pulled my elven fire staff from its holster, ready to incinerate the first vamp to come ashore.

  Except none of them moved. A wave would roll in, washing over their heads because the surf had been high and rough for the past two days. Then the wave would recede, revealing their bodies standing poker-stiff in almost waist-deep water. They were frozen with their fangs bared, looked really pissed.

  Putting the island’s only magical transport into the Gulf had been brilliant.

  “Looks like vampires don’t much like surfing.” Rene came to stand beside me, dropping his pistol to his side. “How come they ain’t moving, babe?”

  “I have no idea, but their designer clothes sure are getting wet.”

  A tall, sexy canine shifter came to stand at my other side. Unlike Rene, this shifter heard only what he chose to.

  “Vampires can’t move through water, or at least that’s what we learned in enforcer training.” My significant something-or-other, Alexander Warin, squinted into the surf. Like me, Alex had fled New Orleans almost two months ago with a death sentence hanging over his head for trumped-up charges of treason. Until then, he’d been an investigator and occasional assassin for the wizarding elders. I’d been unemployed for months as a sentinel, or wizard border guard.

  “Looks like the lessons were right,” Alex said. “Those are not happy vampires.”

  Vamps were a fairly morose lot anyway, in my opinion. Although it was hard to see much by moonlight. The flambeaux burning alongside the raised wooden path to Jean’s house lit the path, but not much more.

  My own physical magic was useless in water, and since vampires were magical creatures, it made sense they’d be unable to move, especially in saltwater. Salt amped up everything.

  “I grow weary of these creatures. They have little talent for fighting.” A tall, sexy, undead French pirate came to stand on the other side of Rene. Jean Lafitte wore a grim smile. “Would you like me to kill these invaders, Drusilla? Who do you think sent them?”

  Gosh, the list was so long, and vamps were thugs. They’d work for whoever dished out the most money. The Realm of Vampyre hadn’t taken sides in the deteriorating state of affairs among all the preternatural species. War had been declared almost two months ago, but no one had been willing to fire the first volley until the civil war in Faerie was settled. It all hinged on the fae, which made me feel morose myself.

  “Well, the wizards want all of us dead.” Rene wasn’t officially on the wizards’ hit list since the water species were the Switzerland of prete politics, but Rene had threatened the First Elder with a gun. “The fae could be after me or Jean—or just being batshit-crazy faeries, which is redundant, I know. The elves want me as a pawn, and if the rest of you die in the process—oh well.”

  Freakin’ elves.

  “We sure got a lot of enemies, babe.” Rene grinned at me as he stuck his pistol in a shoulder holster before turning toward the water. Flickering lights from the flambeaux we had stuck in the beach highlighted the tattoos on his slim, muscular back and set blue reflections glinting off his black hair, which hadn’t been cut in a while. “I’ll haul one in and see what they want. Cover me; I’ve had enough fangs in me for one lifetime.”

  Between Jean’s sword, Alex’s handgun, and Charlie, my elven fire staff, we had him covered. Rene had enjoyed the orgasmic pleasures of being fed on by a half-dozen vampires just before Christmas. It had taken two days before he could walk upright. Guess once was enough.

  “We need to get them all out of there,” Alex said. “I have to meet someone in Old Orleans, and they’re clogging up our transport.” He kept his big, black handgun in a firm grip, watching Rene take off his shoes and remove the holster before wading into the surf toward our creepy, silent visitors.

  “Who will you be meeting, Monsieur Warin?” Jean’s voice was low and calm, but there was nothing calm about the relationship between our undead host and my shifter. At least I thought he was still my shifter. He’d been more monosyllabic than usual since his reluctant oath of loyalty to Jean Lafitte. Alex and I needed to have a long-overdue talk.

  “If I think something concerns you, Monsieur Lafitte, I’ll tell you.” Alex didn’t try to hide his sarcasm. “Otherwise, it’s none of your business.”

  Good grief. We had six fanged mercenaries frozen in our transport, the Faerie Prince of Winter—Jean’s friend Christof—had been missing for more than a month, the prete world stood on the brink of war, and Jean and Alex were still bickering.

  “If your meeting doesn’t concern Jean, does it concern me?” I turned to look at Alex. He gave me a quick side
-eye before returning his gaze to Rene, who’d almost reached the closest vampire.

  “If it’s anything you need to know, DJ, I’ll tell you.”

  We’d be having a discussion on what he thought I needed to know, too, because I needed to know everything.

  Rene reached the closest vampire, jumping up to ride a passing wave and timing his grab. He hauled the short, soggy male out of the water by his hair, which had probably been stylishly coiffed when he’d left home, or wherever they came from. Now, not so much.

  As soon as his shiny, wet boots cleared the water, the vampire tackled Rene and sank his fangs into the merman’s calf, wet jeans and all.

  Alex growled, aimed, and shot the vamp in the thigh. The vampire had to withdraw his fangs from Rene in order to howl in pain. You want drama? Hire a vamp.

  Rene climbed to his feet and kicked sand on the vampire before picking up his shoes and gun. He limped back to us, spearing Alex with a hard look. “Good shot. If another vamp has to come out, you can haul it in while I stand on the beach and look pretty.”

  Alex shrugged.

  The vampire bite would be healed within minutes, but I saw Rene’s point. Alex was five or six inches taller than Rene and about fifty pounds heavier. It wouldn’t kill him to get his feet wet.

  With no sympathy forthcoming, the vamp stopped yowling and got to his feet. A bullet wouldn’t stop a vampire for long unless it was made of wood or it pierced his brain or heart, and Alex knew we needed this one to talk. He had aimed well.

  The vamp tried to wipe the sand off what had once been a very stylish sweater in a dark shade that was hard to determine by torchlight.

  “Who sent you?” I asked. The question was a formality; no decent mercenary would derail his money train.

  He flashed fang at me, but frankly, it wasn’t that scary coming from a sopping-wet, sand-covered metrosexual. Since fear wasn’t working and he was seriously outnumbered, he settled for silence.

  I scanned what I could see of his companions’ frozen faces. “I don’t see anyone important like Garrett Melnick or Etienne Boulard, so you’re strictly hired fangs,” I said. “Let me guess. One of the wizards sent you to kill me, or all of us.”

  That got no response from Mr. Stonefangs. Which meant the First Elder of the wizards’ Congress of Elders, Willem Zrakovi, hadn’t hired them. He was the only wizard actively trying to kill me, which was my own fault. I hadn’t had the guts to kill him seven weeks ago when I had the chance. Word on the streets of Old Orleans, the lawless preternatural border town just across the veil from the modern city of New Orleans, however, was that Zrakovi would always suffer from back pain. I’d at least hurt him enough to cause nerve damage. Pity.

  That only left two key suspects as mercenary employers, top of the list being elves, particularly one very pretty elf who was the arrogant leader of the Elven Synod. Never mind that he was my bondmate-in-name-only. “Was it Quince Randolph? He sent you to, what, kidnap me and kill everyone else?”

  The vampire tugged at his soggy sweater. “I would never work for an elf.”

  “That leaves the fae.” Or, rather, Florian, the Prince of Summer, since the Winter Court were our allies. The rough Gulf seas suddenly seemed a lot less benign. Last time Florian had lost his temper, he’d sent a Category 5 hurricane across this island, a storm so fierce that it caused a tropical system to hit modern New Orleans two days after Christmas. Excited human meteorologists were still having orgasms over that one.

  A chill crept across my shoulder blades, and I stole a glance at Jean. His handsome face was as stern as I’d ever seen it. The high fae princes, Florian of Summer and Christof of Winter, had been locked in a fierce, brutal fight for the throne of Faerie since the death of ancient Queen Sabine shortly after Christmas. Jean’s old friend Christof had been sitting at Jean’s dinner table a month ago, felt a sudden need to get back to the capital of Faerie, and hadn’t been seen or heard from since, despite Jean’s attempts to reach him.

  A hard punch in my upper arm drew my attention away from the stare-down between the pirate and the vampire. I frowned at Rene, but pulled back any snarky remark at the look of horror on his face. “What?”

  “For the love of God, DJ. Tell me that’s a horse.”

  I turned to follow his gaze down the beach toward the east. I saw something horselike. Equine. It was huge, with a dappled gray coat. Its pure-white mane and swishing tail glowed in the moonlight.

  So did its horn. Singular. Sticking out of its forehead.

  “Oh my God.” I looked at Rene in horror that matched his. “It’s a freaking unicorn.”

  “Never mind the unicorn. What are you going to do with us?” The poor, neglected vampire was getting petulant.

  “Get back in the transport and when you’ve become a statue again, I’ll send you all back,” I said, keeping my eyes on the advancing unicorn, which seemed to be holding a basket in its mouth. Unicorns trumped vampires, and he wasn’t exactly spilling his guts anyway.

  “Fine.” The vampire stomped and splashed his way back into the transport, and I hurried after him. Since they couldn’t speak, the vamps couldn’t operate the open transport to get back to their hidey-holes. If they hadn’t been in the way of Alex getting to his mystery meeting, I’d just leave them there to soak a while.

  Once the vampire deanimated in mid-stride, I made sure I was outside the transport, looked with malice at this gaggle of vampires who’d come here to do us harm, and touched Charlie, the elven staff, to the sea floor, getting doused in the process. The interlocking circle and triangle of a wizard’s transport illuminated beneath the waves. I spit out a mouthful of saltwater and said, “Synod House, Elfheim.”

  The vapid little vampires didn’t work for elves? Fine. I’d send them straight to elven headquarters.

  A shot rang out from the beach, and I began running back toward Jean’s house as fast as one could run in moving water while wearing blue jeans. Like a floundering whale, in other words.

  The scene before me was almost too surreal to comprehend. On the beach in front of the two-story, West Indies-styled house he called Maison Rouge, Jean pointed his big, old-fashioned pistol between the unicorn’s eyes. Rene held onto the prancing unicorn’s mane, trying to keep it from bolting, and Alex appeared to be trying to tug the basket out of its mouth.

  Unfortunately, he succeeded a half-second before I reached them, so the big, woven basket landed on the sand, turned over, and spilled its contents.

  “Mon Dieu! Christof, mon ami.” Jean knelt beside the head of the former Faerie Prince of Winter, which had rolled onto the sand.

  I had to turn away and gag on another lungful of saltwater, stunned at the implications. I wasn’t close to Christof, although he’d been saner than any other faery I’d met, which wasn’t saying a lot. But he’d been Jean’s friend for at least a century.

  I hated to consider politics when Jean was grieving, but I couldn’t help it. No one would dare murder Christof and send his head here in a basket except his brother, Florian. Which meant the Prince of Summer had cleared his biggest rival for the throne of Faerie, and the other prete species had no more excuses for sitting on their hands.

  Sides would be drawn.

  Someone would fire the opening shot, literally or figuratively.

  And the Preternatural World War would begin.

  Chapter 2

  “I have a meeting to go to. We good here?” Alex didn’t wait for a yes or no, but just waded into the surf carrying his socks and boots under his arm.

  I propped my hands on my hips, following him to the waterline. “You’re leaving us here with Christof’s head and a unicorn?”

  “Yep. You like adventure, remember?”

  I turned to Rene, who was still trying to hang onto the unicorn’s mane. I heard him call Alex a “damned useless dog” under his breath, but I couldn’t disagree. Not today.

  Jean still knelt in the sand beside the head of his friend Christof. The pirate’s face was still and
emotionless. I leaned over and wrapped my arms around him from behind. I didn’t ask if he was okay; I knew that answer was no. I dropped my empathic shields to dip a finger into the deep pool of his psyche, and the swirl of anguish and fury almost stole my breath.

  “What kind of man does such a thing to his own brother, Jolie?” His voice was calm, but his rage was surging fast. He rose to his feet, almost knocking me off-balance. “I will behead his licorne, and then I will kill Florian himself.”

  “No!” I shouted as he pulled his sword from its scabbard. Jean once only wore daggers and other short blades, but we lived in sword-wielding times now. “Stop! Arrête!”

  Which was about half of my French vocabulary.

  He turned to glare at me. With his dark hair blowing in the wind off the Gulf and murder in his dark-blue eyes, I saw not my friend Jean, the flirtatious charmer who considered his moves carefully, but Lafitte the pirate, who commanded a thousand ruffians, had dealt his share of bloodshed, and looked forward to a bit more.

  “You would defend Florian?”

  I huffed. “Of course not—never. But you’re a smart man, Jean.” I wasn’t above playing to his ego, which was considerable. “You need a plan before you charge after Florian. You know better than most what kind of magic the fae have at their disposal, and you can’t just slash into the Royal Tower of Faerie with a sword.”