“You need to leave,” Nicole said, “You aren’t welcome in New Orleans.”
“Perhaps I wasn’t welcome before, but things seem to have changed, haven’t they? Remy Jackson, I hear, is no longer in control of the coven. In fact, there are many covens in the city now, each acting independently but working together. Remy is also, in fact, sponsoring this magick school operating out of his very own estate. I may have been discouraged from coming back under Remy’s rule, but since he no longer rules…”
My blood was starting to boil, causing anger to rise into my chest and cheeks. I scanned around the room, looking for something I could use to distract her long enough to give me the upper hand. When I saw the paint buckets and brushes stacked against the door, I found my target.
“Nicole, get back,” I said, “I don’t care who this woman is. This is our city, it’s our school, and if you say she isn’t welcome here, then she’s gotta go.”
“Madison,” Nicole said, “Don’t. Whatever you think you’re going to do, don’t do it.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”
“Because this woman is Tamara Blake,” Remy said. He had started to walk into the room from the outer door and crossed to where we were. “Hello, Tamara,” Remy said.
Tamara’s lips pulled into a predatory smile. “Hello, Remy,” her voice softening now, taking an almost sensual tone. “It’s great to see you again.”
“I wish I could say the same. I also wish you hadn’t hurt our students.”
“Please, they’re only stunned. And if they were truly good students they would have been able to protect themselves like this one did. A high magician. Good find.”
“I didn’t find her—she found us. Now, tell me what it is you want, and keep it brief.”
“How about we talk in private?”
“I think we should talk out here.”
“Well, alright,” Tamara said. “It’s no great story, really. For a couple of weeks now I’ve been hearing rumors about you and about New Orleans, so I wanted to come over and check them out for myself. See if it was true what everyone was saying about you.”
“And what’s the word down the grapevine?”
“That you’ve gone soft like a rotting banana. That you’ve given up your power, your rights, to teach students how to do magick. That’s not the Remy I knew, and it’s definitely not the Remy I once wanted in my bed.”
Woah, holy shit; those two?
“There’s no need to get personal,” Remy said, “Now you’ve seen it’s all true, I’d like it if you left my property. There doesn’t have to be any more altercations.”
“I can’t promise either of those things, Remy. I actually don’t have any intention of leaving New Orleans. I used to live here. I was born here. Now I want to come back home. I worked just as hard as you did to make this place great, and I’m not going to let some upstart little bitches take what belongs to me.”
“Wait a second,” I said, as hot blood coursed through my veins. “Just who do you think you’re talking to?”
“I’m talking to a little girl who’s way in over her head. New Orleans isn’t your home, and if you think I’m going to leave town just because you’ve asked me to, you’re sadly mistaken. You’ll be seeing a lot more of me, I can assure you.”
“Fair enough,” Remy said, “But not today.”
Tamara flashed a wolf-like grin, and with a flick of the wrist she knocked over the paint cans and brushes I had been eyeing to toss at her. The grin turned into a smug, satisfied smirk, and she turned around, disappearing down the hall and out of sight, leaving only the sound of her clacking heels as evidence she was even here at all, and me feeling like a tornado had just swept through the area. Remy sighed and dragged a hand down his chin and jaw, a sign of a man trying to wash away a great deal of tension.
“Is anyone hurt?” Remy asked.
“No,” Nina said. She had gotten up and hobbled over to where we were, but I had been so focused on Tamara I hadn’t even registered her presence. “The others are asleep. I checked.”
“Good,” Remy said. “I’ll get to work on waking them up.”
“I’ll help you,” Nicole said, and they both rushed off to help the fallen witches.
“What was that all about?” Nina asked.
“You heard the woman,” I said, “Looks like there’s a new bitch in town.”
“We gonna kick her ass?”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said, though I could already tell this woman was looking for a fight; and if she poked hard enough, she might just get one.
CHAPTER TWO
After the incident with Tamara, I had seen the other witches out of the house and come back to the ballroom. Now I stood at the door, hesitating probably a couple of seconds too many before opening it. My trepidation wasn’t justified—Remy had donated his house in the Garden District to our cause, and to the witches of New Orleans, in its entirety; I should have gotten used to the place by now. But being without other witches at my side always made me nervous.
The door didn’t croak as I pushed it open, and I could smell the fresh coat of paint as I went past it. Paint cans sat on a tarp on the floor, just inside. I shut the door behind me and stepped further into the room.
Paint brushes worked without hands to control them throughout the ballroom, diligently coating the walls with a fresh, cream coat. Standing with his back to me, Remy held a paintbrush in his hand with his sleeves rolled up, directing the brushes like a conductor. Beside him, a small radio mounted on a stool played soft jazz. I glanced over at his suede shoes and noticed he wore red socks under his dark gray trousers. This was the only man I knew who could rock a pair of red socks. On anyone else, they would have probably looked ridiculous.
He hadn’t waited long to start fixing the damage Tamara had caused. He turned to face me as I approached, then let the paint brush slip into the palette on the floor next to him. The others continued to work without his direction.
“You should have waited for me,” I said, “I would have helped.”
“That’s alright,” Remy said, “What good is magick if you can’t use it to help with the chores?”
A smile crossed my lips. “This place is coming along great.”
“Thank you. It’s good to see a little color back in the old girl’s face.”
I scanned the room around me. “How long has it been since the house had any use? Before we started using it, I mean.”
“Almost thirty years, give or take a few. I stopped having a need for it a while ago.”
“And to think, all this time you were sitting on a big, old house too.”
“This is one of the things I love the most about Louisiana—all the old houses.” He paused. “About what happened earlier, with Tamara…”
“Yeah, what was that about?”
“She’s a… former acquaintance of mine. More like an ex-wife. Things didn’t work out very well, so we went our separate ways.”