She took off her sunglasses and blinked innocently. “What? That wasn’t what you were thinking?”
“I was thinking about finding more biscuits and gravy, but I like your suggestion more.”
They walked down Frenchmen Street,hand in hand, enjoying the spill of music in the night air and the buzzing crowd that had drifted over from the French Quarter. It was Wednesday night in the Faubourg Marigny. Not too busy. Not too quiet.
Meera loved the energy. She always had. She felt buoyant. Light.
She almost overlooked the shadowed presence on the edge of Washington Square.
She stopped in the middle of the street and turned.
Rhys, who’d been listening to a brass band on the corner, came to attention. “What is it?”
“Vasu.”
He grimaced. “Won’t that damn angel—”
“Stop.” She held up her hand. “Something is different.” She dropped Rhys’s hand and walked toward the sidewalk surrounding the park. Artists were packing up their canvases for the day and tourists walked hand in hand, but Meera’s eyes were locked on two huddled figures on the sidewalk.
She walked over to them.
Vasu looked up, his face swathed in rags and his appearance changed to the face of a grizzled old man. “Did you forget me?”
“Of course not. Vasu—”
“What power have you been tempting, Meera Bai?” His voice was guttural and harsh. His elbow nudged the old homeless man sitting next to him. The man toppled over sideways, and the hat fell from his head, revealing grey skin and a blank, dead stare.
Vasu became a shadow when a pedestrian noticed the dead man and screamed. Rhys grabbed Meera’s hand and melted back into the gathering crowd. Meera heard the squawk of a police radio and two dogs barking.
She felt them before she saw them. Four Grigori making their way through the crowd, cold eyes locked on Meera and Rhys.
What power have you been tempting?
“Grigori,” Rhys said, taking Meera by the elbow. “I think Bozidar is in the city.”
“But why? Why now?”
“Maybe you should ask your friend Vasu!” He hustled her up Elysian Fields and cut through the neighborhood, taking the back way to her house. “Maybe it has nothing to do with him. But maybe it does.”
“The Grigori are still behind us,” Meera said.
“I know. Dammit, I don’t want them following us home.”
“Find me an alley,” she said, nearly running to keep up with his strides. “An alley, a warehouse. Somewhere deserted. We need to question them.”
“Fine, but my pacifist tendencies died with the human in the square. These aren’t lost souls looking for redemption. These are Bozidar’s soldiers, and that was a Grigori kill.”
“I know.” She’d seen the look of twisted ecstasy on the human’s face. Only Grigori could make a human happy to hand over their soul. “Find me an alley, Rhys.”
They turned to the right on Burgundy Street, walking against traffic as they passed newly renovated shotgun houses on the right and boarding houses on the left. There was little traffic, but lights were on in most of the homes, and Meera could hear televisions and phone calls in the residences around them. She could also feel two more Grigori join the four that had been following them.
They passed an old church on the left, its doors boarded up. Rhys ran past, then stopped and ran back.
“Here?”
“A church?”
“It’s empty.”