both a flashlight and a gun—a .357 Magnum. His deep-green eyes glittered in the soft yellow light that burnished the planes and hollows of his face.
“Jesus, Iz.” He set down the flashlight as he gathered her up with his left arm. “When I heard it was Esposito…”
“I’m okay,” she said as he laced his fingers through hers, easing her to her feet as he swept the area with his gun. “I don’t know where Torres is. Did he call it in?”
“Must have,” he said. “Captain Clancy told me to get my butt over here. She didn’t need to tell me twice.”
Her leg buckled as she put weight on her injured ankle, and he kept her from falling, his face creasing with concern.
“I’m okay,” she said again, then realized that she had to be honest about her injury. They were on a mission. She confessed, “My ankle’s sprained. It hurts.”
“You stay here, then,” he ordered her as he retrieved his flashlight and clicked it off—a wise precaution, one she would have taken herself.
“No way,” she insisted, coughing as the smoke seeped back into her lungs. “I think he took her toward the back.”
He gazed at her and shook his head. “Don’t go all Jane Wayne on me, Officer. I’m getting you out of here.”
“He wants me to follow him. If I don’t take the bait, he might shoot her,” she argued.
With the stern expression of a detective who could make hardened gangbangers break down and cry after ten minutes in an interview room, Pat said, “You’re out, Iz. I’m on it.”
Coughing harder, she fanned the smoke away from them both with her hat.
“She’s on my watch,” Izzy insisted. “I’m thinking the fire escape. Let’s go.”
As she stepped forward, there was a loud ripping noise overhead. She gazed up, just as an enormous section of the ceiling dislodged and crashed to the floor. The impact threw her into Pat’s arms and he dragged her along the hallway as another section cracked free and smashed inches from her back.
An illuminated Exit sign buzzed and winked about ten feet ahead of them. Pat reached it first and pressed his hand on the metal door beneath it.
“It’s cool,” he reported. Meaning that there was no fire on the other side. Then he yanked it open.
Their feet clanged on metal; they had reached the fire escape, a metal rectangle from which ladderlike stairs angled upward and downward. Reflexively, they both looked up. Far above them, flames danced on the roof.
Then an eerie purplish-black light bloomed from below and streaked toward them like a missile. They both dropped to the floor of the fire escape; as it bobbed dangerously, the black light exploded against the open door and tore it off its hinges.
Bricks broke and flew outward; Pat threw himself on top of Izzy and bellowed, “Cover your head!”
A fragment of brick pelted her forearm. She heard a shower of pieces ringing against the metal floor. Pat grunted.
“Are you hurt?” she cried.
“No, I’m okay.” He gripped her shoulders. “Stay down. Here comes another one.”
“What’s going on?” she demanded, trying to jerk up her head. But Pat was in the way.
“It’s Le Fils,” he said into her ear. His breath was moist and warm. “Esposito’s down there, too. They’re attacking, and they have Sauvage.”
“Le Fils?” Izzy suddenly felt very dizzy. The world canted left, right, as if the fire escape had pulled from the building and was swinging freely. Le Fils, Le Fils…
It was all there, in an instant. Everything they were doing right now could not be happening. If Le Fils was down there, they could not be in New York. And she had never told Pat about Le Fils. Le Fils du Diable—the Son of the Devil—was the king vampire of New Orleans, terrorizing both Gifted and Ungifted alike. She hadn’t known about Le Fils until the day she had left New York…
Oh, my God. I left New York. I never went to the Police Academy. I’m not NYPD.
She felt another wave of vertigo.
The floor beneath them was not metal. It was wood. As Pat shifted his weight, she lifted her swirling head and saw men in tuxedos and women in gowns rushing past the two of them. A leathery creature in a hood bobbed past. It had been at the dinner, when Jean-Marc had presented her to the family.
Jean-Marc…where is Jean-Marc?
Another explosion rocked the floor. She smelled smoke. She heard screaming.
“Let me up,” she woozily ordered Pat.
“No, stay down, darlin’,” he told her. Pat’s face was backlit by a shimmering curtain of blue. The curtain darkened with purple; then another bolt of purple-black burst through and hit the white wooden wall behind them. “He’s attacking.”
He already did attack. Le Fils and his accomplice, Julius Esposito the voodoo bokor, attacked us last night. Here, in New Orleans. Why is it happening again? This is more than a dream. Is this a vision?
With a burst of strength born of determination, she forced his weight off her body and slowly got to her feet.
Surrounded by familiar faces, some standing still as white light poured from their palms, others rushing through the chaos, she and Pat stood on the verandah of the de Bouvard mansion on the outskirts of the bayou—her blood family’s home for nearly three hundred years. She was not wearing her police uniform, but the white satin gown embroidered with flames on the bodice she had worn at her presentation.
The flame-shaped brand in her left palm glowed and pulsed, and she remembered the rest: she was no longer simply Izzy DeMarco; she was Isabella Celestina DeMarco de Bouvard, the daughter of the flames. Her biological mother, Marianne, the guardienne and titular protector of this House, lay downstairs in a coma.
And this was her battle.
Around her neck, Izzy wore protective talismans: the rose quartz necklace Sauvage had given her, and the chicken-foot gris-gris of Andre the werewolf.
Andre…Jean-Marc… She looked for the Cajun werewolf and Jean-Marc, the passionate magic user who had tracked her down and brought her here from New York. The men who should be here. She searched the throng for Sange, the elegant vampire. She saw none of them.
She reached out a hand to Pat and said, “You’re not supposed to be here. You need to go inside.”
“No way,” he replied. Then his sea-green eyes widened and his lips parted in a silent grimace. Silently, he sank to his knees and fell forward, hard, onto his face.
The back of his jacket was shredded, and blood gushed from an entry wound.
“Oh, my God, Pat!” she cried. She placed one hand over the other and pushed to stem the geyser of blood. It was spraying her face. Pat’s blood was spraying her face!
“Officer
