Chapter 5

Afew days later, I was feeling more capable about the wedding. Allie was working with my mother on the details—public and private ones. Contrary to the rumor mill we'd set in motion, I would not be having my ceremony inside any buildings.

Tonight, I was at a restaurant where I'd been meeting my grandmother bi-weekly. The interior was dimly lit, old-European ambiance with eloquence and age vying for dominance. On the wall were carved skulls and several paintings that were from lesser-known Renaissance artists. The chandeliers were old world oil fixtures, but that was not unusual in New Orleans. Flickering flames lit a lot of places in the city. I suspected that the décor was my grandmother's property. I knew the restaurant was.

"Ms. Crowe?" the waiter came by the table again. "Would you like to order? Or are you still waiting for the lady."

The lady, of course, was my great-times-great grandmother. She closed Diablerie for our meetings, allowing us both a privacy that we craved.

Beatrice was usually early, but tonight, I'd been here for an hour, and she still hadn't shown. Admittedly, she could be busy running one of her companies or beheading usurpers or whatever else she did. Still, I worried.

She hadn't mentioned any recent issues, and I tried not to ask too many questions—the secret to successful families, in my experience, was to avoid awkward topics. Sometimes it was belching at dinner, and sometimes it was "please don't send me heads in boxes." We agreed to disagree on the latter last holiday season.

Grandmother? I called on whatever "channel" it was that we used to speak at a distance. Are you well, Beatrice?

No answer.

I motioned for the waiter. If Beatrice wasn't replying, I was headed to the Outs to check on her.

But before the waiter reached me, Beatrice swept into the restaurant like a small storm. The red and black tablecloths all fluttered in the breeze created by her wake. There was flowing, and then there was the speed at which she did so. My bones tingled at the chill she radiated.

"Water," she said as the server paused at our table. To me she said, "My meeting ran late."

We were the only people in Diablerie other than the waiter, bartender, and chef.

Beatrice looked like a misplaced warrior. Knee-length leather wrapped her legs. She wore what resembled a traditional Scottish kilt, which was nothing more than a long swath of plaid fabric wrapped artfully around her. It was held at the waist with a length of snakeskin, as if the snake was biting its own tail. Leather gauntlets with metal decorations covered her wrists and throat.

Uncharacteristically, blood streaked her hair like dye, and bloody fangs were woven onto a cord that dangled around her throat. People were terrified of draugr, and with good reason. They were dead, and their existence was predicated on drinking the blood of the living. It made them closer to reptilian than human, although they all, in fact, started as human.

"Are those dripping?"

Beatrice smiled. "Someone questioned whether I was fit to serve."

I winced.

"I do dislike spurious challenges to my authority," she said mildly.

The waiter returned with water, as well two glasses of what appeared to be red wine. My glass was simply wine. Hers was not.

"Let's talk about flowers," Beatrice said. "Your mother thinks that we ought to ask Marcus if the fae have any bridal flowers of a tradition nature."

"Mmm."

"I think that he can do that in Elphame." Beatrice dabbed her lips with her red linen napkin.

"I think that my feet on the soil, and my family present to share my joy is all I want," I explained. "Honestly, I have no opinions on most of it."

"And the cathedral plans?"

"In order." I had no doubt that that the wedding Allie was planning at the cathedral would be the dream wedding for whatever couple she'd privately approached. My wedding would be outside, though. In nature. That was the one unifying detail between the ceremony in the Outs and the one in Elphame. Well, that and my groom.

"Any word from Chester? Iggy?" Beatrice asked, as she did every time we met.

"Both silent." I sipped my wine. Chester was the oldest living human, and Iggy was a witch I'd brought back from the dead accidentally. The former had threatened me—and a very long time ago murdered Beatrice. The latter was either friend or foe depending on his agenda. "I think we're clear to have a crises free wedding."

She made an indelicate noise. "Between tourists and men, I have my doubts."

"You do realize that I'm marrying a man?" I asked lightly.

"Eli is acceptable." Beatrice shrugged. "I tire of beheading my enemies, daughter of mine. So often they are men. Our problems . . . so often . . ."

She stared at a spot beyond me. And for a flicker I thought an enemy waited there. Foolish of me. I would feel any dead presence, and all I noticed were her corpse-guards. She looked into her thoughts. I knew that the ancient witch draugr who had once been a mere mortal witch had been forced to carry children as Chester plotted to create a witch-draugr hybrid. Me. He had plotted to create me centuries before I was born, and it cost Beatrice her life. Add to that the fact that her descendant—my mother—was manipulated a couple decades ago to that end, and it was easy to see why Beatrice had some misogyny.

"Cannot feed them to the dragons, cannot turn them into pigs," Beatrice muttered. "Your mother has asked much of me of late. I will be glad when the wedding has passed."

"I do appreciate you not feeding anyone to the gators," I said lightly.

"One pig and you mother threatened to move out." Beatrice held my gaze. "She has such patience, that woman."

I patted Beatrice's hand. "But you did get to rip the fangs from someone tonight . . . that's, err, something . . ."

She smiled, not quite a laugh but more cheerful now. "He was foolish to doubt my ferocity. A woman? A witch? A Jew? Does he think that I am stranger to challenges?'

"Underestimated isn't the same as defeated, though." I sipped my wine. "If there is any chance of co-existence with humanity, your path is the right one. Your allies see this."

"You give good counsel, daughter of mine. Perhaps we can stage a small coup after your nuptials. I have been eying what your nation calls Florida. They create so many conflicts."

I made a noncommittal noise, and this time Beatrice laughed genuinely.

By the time I was ready to leave, Beatrice and I had agreed that we would allow my mother her way with the wedding, and I would talk to Mama Lauren if there was anyone who truly would be best served with a stint as a pig—excepting the King of Elphame.

After I left Beatrice,I met my groom at his bar, Bill's Tavern, for a drink. He had an incredibly capable manager, my friend Christy, but Eli was still on site frequently the last few weeks. It was Eli's bar, the reason we met and the place I had felt undeniably at home for several years. I used to think it was the ambiance: a polished wooden bar, low bar lights, and a remarkably good liquor collection. Turned out it was Eli.

"Crowe," the doorman called out to me as I approached the line waiting to get into the bar.

"No fair!"

"Hey!"

The doorman shut them all up with a glare. The news of the royal nuptials and the usual Halloween crowd in our fair city made for more of a crush than normal at Bill's Tavern. A part of me rebelled at all the unfamiliar faces as I stepped inside.

"Fangs," Eli murmured as he pulled me in for a polite hug. He was increasingly circumspect in public, and I wasn't sure if it was about protecting my privacy or about dissuading gossip.

I concentrated on retracting the recently acquired fangs. I didn't need them. I wasn't dead, so they were an unwelcome surprise.My draugr genes disagreed sometimes, though, and fangs extended. I developed an awkward lisp that could give me away, but other than that, it was fine.

Without another word, Eli motioned for a bartender, and in a matter of moments, we were walking to a roped off corner table with a bottle of tequila and a pair of glasses.

"And how is your grandmother?" he asked.

"Dressed in bloody fangs and grumbling at dealing with my far-too-patient mother." I smiled. "I swear that Mama Lauren is the most reasonable of the bunch. Allie is bridesmaid-zilla with her desire that everything be perfect, and Beatrice is irritable. And your uncle . . . apparently he was irate that we were getting married in a church."

"A church?" Eli sounded like he might laugh. "He believed that?"

"Many people believe it. It's a historic building, beautiful and—"

"Catholic." Eli chuckled. "Do you think people are that gullible?"

I pulled out my phone and showed him a row of currently trending hashtags. I was simultaneously excoriated under the tags #badwitch and #BadJew and cheered under #faeryweddings and #witchybride.

"This is absurd," he muttered.

"Wait for the #hotfaery and #PrinceEli threads," I teased. "Apparently, there are plenty of people willing and eager to convince you to pick them instead."

He gave me a look that ought not be legal in public. "Impossible. I have everything I need right here."

He didn't look away from my eyes as he lifted my hand and pressed a kiss into my palm; his lips glanced over the edge of the callouses left there by countless hours with swords or axes in my hand.

"My warrior bride," he added. "My long-sought prize. My perfect dessert."

I sighed. "You make me feel speechless when you say things like that." I stepped closer and whispered, "Or like I ought to pull you into the office and ask you to ravish me."

"Good." He looked smug enough that only a fool would mistake him for human. No one does arrogant quite like the fae.

It felt like an absolutely perfect moment, right up to when the screams started.

"Death to monsters!" someone yelled before two other people shoved our bleeding doorman inside.

With a screech that was loud enough to cut through the chaos of a bar full of frightened drunks, a rust-bucket car came slamming into the front door. The hood of the car was covered in crucifixes, and the front window was missing.

Two people in hoods that resembled the ones worn on Mardi Gras floats crouched there with . . . high volume spray guns.

People screamed as they got doused in what smelled like plain water.

All the while, the radio of the car was cranked, and a Latin mass was playing loudly. The sound of a priest intoning prayers as the bar patrons were being doused with water was enough of an oddity that I had to wonder if this was someone's idea of a Halloween prank.

But prank or threat, I wasn't about to let it stand.

Eli was helping the doorman to his feet, and he and Christy were already handling getting people moved to the back of the building. The injured would heal, and even if there were draugr in the bar, holy water wouldn't do anything but make them wet.

Aside from the damage to the bar, this wasn't a dangerous situation. There were no fatal injuries. I wasn't feeling forgiving though.

My home.

My people.

I stomped toward the door, all while sending my grave magic out in waves that rippled and returned to me.

To me.

I could feel eyes opened in the soil. Ears listening for my call. Human and rodent and assorted pets. They were all aware of me. They were waking at my summons. No grave soil needed. For much of my life, I'd worked to develop control over my grave magic. It had been my focus since childhood, but since bonding with Eli, I was less about control—and more about testing my limits.

We come.

Mother.

We are yours.

We protect.

I invited the corpses to see through my eyes as I stared at the people who were here to cause me and mine harm.

"Get her!"

I felt something hit me, just as I heard the dead fall back to sleep.

Eli yelled, "Geneviève!"

But I was unable to reply to him, to the dead, to anyone.