“What do you feel?” Eli asked, his tiny little convertible was bouncing along a road that seemed to be cobblestone.
“At least twenty draugr,” I said, feeling the minds of those re-animated dead notice me. “Scattered bones.”
Even if I tried not to reach out with magic, I would still feel death, absences in pockets of space. Graves. Draugr. My sense of the dead was simply there, like hearing or sight. Near me now was a man. Recently dead. I let the magic roll out in several directions. Three woman in the bayou. Six more men in the ground closer to the house. A child in a grave.
And a tangle of bones in a field . . . sixty. . . maybe up to eighty bodies.
“The ground is filled,” I said, the horror of so many dead trying to connect with me slid into my voice. I knew without doubt that Beatrice had summoned Eli in order to make me come here. I didn’t know why, but this much I knew.
Eli stopped the car under a willow that looked like it was here before the Civil War. The trunk was thick and old, and the wind through the branches felt like a song. Nature. Soil. Plant. Sky. These were the parts that called to my maternal heritage, and they were the parts of this world that also beckoned Eli.
The fae have an affinity for nature that makes it atypical for them to come to our pollution filled world, but despite the parts of the human world that were flawed, the Outs were like that. Without people, the land there was increasingly pure. Alligators, raccoons, feral pigs, snakes, life thrived and blossomed now that most people had to retreat to the cities. Nature was where people visited, but to live out here meant to know that there were Alpha Predators that looked like you but thought you were more of a snack than a friend.
I stood, feeling the humid air and listening to night birds sing and mosquitoes buzz. I’d give a lot for more time surrounded by this. I grew up out here, and if I could, I’d have stayed here.
“Lady Beatrice will join you in the courtyard,” a well-dressed, once-human girl said. She was young in appearance, maybe fifteen upon her death, and she was dressed as if we were at an expensive Renaissance festival.
She’d flowed in the way of most draugr. She, I would presume, had been at the door, but now she was at my side.
“The house is . . . unusual,” I murmured as we approached what appeared to be a small castle. As far as unusual Southern homes went, this might be the winner for ostentatiousness. It was vaguely modernized—no drawbridge—but there was a long stone bridge between parking and the massive front doors.
As we were walking toward it, I could see that that the bridge was over a moat. Under the moat were resting alligators.
“The Lady Beatrice had a canal put in. That way the bayou waters come closer and the water dragons can swim around her home.”
“Dragons?” Eli echoed.
The girl pointed toward the one enormous alligator. “We didn’t have these in the forest at home. Sir George is always here. The others come and go, but Sir George is my lady’s pet.”
“Of course she has a pet alligator.”
“Do you mean the dragon?” the girl asked.
Eli motioned us forward. “Are there more dragons in the courtyard?”
The girl giggled and led us to the main doors. Wide enough to walk an elephant into the castle, and tall enough to allow a giraffe with minor stooping. Wooden. Medieval. The doors opened with minimal noise at our approach, as if by magic, but in reality, there were two women there. One had obviously pulled each door open, and when we stepped into the foyer, they marched the doors shut.
No one else was visible.
To the foolish, the house would seem to be the possession of an eccentric and her all-woman staff. The two very muscular women at the door were human. The draugr escort spoke so clearly she had to be at least two centuries old. Young draugr were never so articulate. They were all Caucasian, female, and I was glad to see that the Southern tendency toward racism in staffing was not at play here. There were plenty of places in the South where things had begun to change in the years before the cities put up walls. New Orleans was a leader in that change.
But New Orleans was a city that had a rich history of finding its own path, so no one who knew the city was surprised when we led the way.
“Are there any men here?” I asked as we crossed the foyer to exit into a small passageway that was stone-lined and lit by honest-to-Pete sconces.
Our guide gave a smile that was disturbing on such a young face. “If we have use of them, we send out for them.”
Eli laughed, but all he said was, “As I was summoned, I am glad I chose to bring my fiancé with me tonight, then. I have no desire to be besieged.”
“You are a fine specimen.” The girl nodded at me, though, not him as she opened another door. This door was average-sized, although there was a salt line across it.
The girl met my gaze. “If you must keep a man, the fae are a good choice.”
Before I could ask what in the name of duck dongles that meant, she was gone. Her giggles echoed in the hallway, but Eli and I were alone. A part of me, a surly not-interested-in-bullshit part of me that was typically my largest deciding factor, wanted to flow after her and demand answers. The less reasonable sort wanted to simply leave.
“Candy apple,” Eli began, his hand already reaching for mine as if he knew that I might bolt. “We are here to meet with Beatrice.”
I sighed. “I know. No beheading the hostess’ staff.”
It pained me to admit, but this was not a new conversation. Sometimes clients for my job—which was typically only beheading draugr or summoning dead relatives to answer a few lingering questions—were about as charming as angry weasels. My witchy genetics should lend me calm, but I guess that was countered by the draugr side.
“Is she coming outside or intending to chase after Eleanor?” Beatrice’s voice rang out, sounding amused.
“Geneviève?” Eli prompted.
“I am here.” I stepped out before Eli did so, bracing myself for something wretched. Instead I was met with the only other witch-draugr I’d known of. I didn’t know if she had been born draugr and witch, or if she’d been made so.
Right now, she was standing beside two feral pigs.
“Son of Stonecroft,” Beatrice said with a moderately deep bow in Eli’s direction. Then she met my gaze. “You have been avoiding me, Geneviève.”
I shrugged.
Beatrice looked at the pigs and made a sweeping gesture. I could swear they bowed their heads before leaving.
“Are those regular pigs?” I asked.
“What else would they be?” Beatrice was dressed in the most normal thing I’d seen to date, a simple black linen pantsuit. Her feet were bare. “Do I look like Circe to you?”
“Witch with feral pigs who bow to her? Yeah. A bit,” I admitted.
Beatrice’s expression twitched like she was trying not to laugh. I couldn’t decide if it was a laugh that I was right or laugh that I was wrong.
I glanced away. Her courtyard, where we were currently standing, reminded me of my childhood home because of the nature, and for a brief moment, I could swear that I’d met her before this past year. I stared at her. I would’ve known, right? Mama Lauren wouldn’t have . . . I chased that thought away.
“What do you want?”
“To catch a killer,” she said.