[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine (21 page)

“I’m just trying to understand you. I don’t want to play anyone!”

“I’m not sure I know how to do anything else,” he said. “It’s how I’ve survived.”

“Right.” Might as well jump in. “As a matter of interest, did you kill anybody at the Threshold tonight?”

His aura flared. “Tony’s been blabbing. What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing I hadn’t figured out for myself, such as that killing people isn’t good for you.”

“It so happens I didn’t kill anyone. I just watched from the shadows. Nobody saw me, but club management must have gotten word that the underworld was going to send a spy, because nobody even came near breaking the rules. Nobody was underage, all the participants seemed willing, and the guy we were particularly interested in didn’t even take out a knife.” They turned onto Eaton’s street. Constantine’s voice was a chill wind in the hot, dense chorus of the Louisiana summer night. “The scumbag could use a good fright, but what kind of nightmares should I send someone who likes cutting games? He may get off on being the victim if it’s just a dream, or the fear may excite him even more. Don’t want to encourage the asshole.” She felt him shrug in the darkness. “It’s an entertaining creative exercise.”

“Some of your songs,” she said. “They’re dreams you’ve sent people, aren’t they?” Specifically, the one he’d sent her uncle, but she couldn’t discuss that. “Not your way of thinking, but your take on others or on what would frighten them.” She sighed. “That explains it, I guess. Your love songs are so beautiful, and some of your stuff is unbelievably spiritual. It didn’t seem to fit together, but now it does.”

“Don’t get too comfy about me, babe.” He was right. She should be cautious; she should make a point of staying unnerved. Even if he hadn’t beaten or killed anyone tonight, he’d done it before and would do it again. She shouldn’t want to be with him at all.

Instead, desire crawled all over her, powerful and intense. This must be some dumb reverse psychology at work,
she thought irritably. What she couldn’t have, she wanted even more.

But… were these her own feelings, or was he now playing her? She glanced at him. Arousal glowed in his aura. He caught her eye, and his aura reached out and danced with hers. His aura confirmed the source of her feelings. Auras were often less vivid in the dark, but arousal tended to show regardless.

“Damn it,” she said. “You’re thinking about sex again.”

“Always, when I’m with you, darlin’.”

“Control yourself, for God’s sake.” Which was unfair of her, because she was pretty sure a good part of that arousal had been her own. Mutual chemistry, each of them feeding upon the other’s desire…

Dragging her focus back where it belonged, she pulled up behind Glennis’s car in front of Eaton’s old two-story clapboard. The porch light was on, along with a low light in the front room.

Constantine was out before she’d turned off the car, and Lawless bounced up, eager to join the party. “I forgot about Eaton’s dog,” Marguerite said. “She’s a yappy little thing, and she might be in the yard. Lawless likes her.”

“Sorry, boy. Not this time.” Constantine’s aura gentled briefly. “Go to sleep. We’ll be back.”

Lawless yawned, circled a couple of times, curled up on the back seat, and closed his eyes. Warmth and sadness swept over Marguerite. This was a Constantine she liked.

“Go ahead and try the front windows while I check for the dog,” he said. She tiptoed up the front steps, watching as he slipped around the side, his aura stretching ahead of
him toward the back garden. Eaton’s dog yipped once, then subsided completely.

Marguerite peered through the blinds, but the front room was empty. She hurried around the side of the house. Constantine had braced himself between a drainpipe and a crepe myrtle to peek in the kitchen window. “Too bad neither of us has vampire hearing, although so far it’s pretty obvious. He’s making coffee and looking bewildered while she waxes hysterical.”

“I don’t think he’s much of an actor,” Marguerite said. “Come down and give me a boost. If I can just see him, I’ll feel more comfortable about leaving.”

“Take my word for it, all he’s doing right now is trying to wake up.”

Why was Constantine stalling? “Come on,” she said, “I want to see him.”

“Want to? Or need to?”

“Fine. I’ll go onto the deck and peek through the back door.”

“Not a good idea,” Constantine said. “The dog’s there. I’m having a hell of a time keeping it from yapping as is.”

“Then pick me up so I can see in the window!”

“That’s an even worse idea,” he said, jumping down. He lifted her, one firm hand on her hip and the other curled around her thigh. Pleasure raked down her with merciless teeth. She gasped, arched back, and slumped against him. “Told you,” he said.

She straightened furiously. Embarrassment took over, anger on its tail, while her core throbbed anxiously, demanding more. “What is the
matter
with you? If you don’t want it, stop thinking about it!” She got ahold of herself
and peered in the window. Glennis was getting mugs from the cupboard while Eaton, dressed in a T-shirt and boxers, tipped maple cookies onto a plate. What hair he had stuck out in all directions.

“See? Nothing interesting. You could have just believed me,” Constantine said. “Or did you
need
to see him?”

“Yes, I needed to,” she said. “And you need to keep your desires locked up inside you where they belong. He’s coming toward the window. Let me down.”

He did—so quickly she almost fell.

Above them, the kitchen window slid up. “I don’t know about the van, Glennis,” Eaton was saying. “I left it at the mechanic’s for a tune-up before I went out of town this morning. That’s better. There’s a nice breeze tonight.” His voice and footsteps receded.

“Did you ‘suggest’ that he open the window?” Marguerite whispered.

“We want to hear them, don’t we?” His murmur tickled her ear, kindling tiny fires down below.

Mentally, she doused the fires with ice-cold Coke. “He’s innocent. I’m sure of it. But in the interest of not playing stupid games, I don’t think Janie was lying either—just putting her spin on things.”

“Uh-huh.” Constantine blew on her ear. “Mostly, she confirmed what I already knew.”

“Stop that!” Marguerite hissed and backed into a holly bush with a muffled yelp. “What do you mean, already knew?”

“Tsk.” He put his fingers to his lips. “We can’t have an open window with you making all that noise.”

“It’s your damned fault—” She shushed herself just in time.

“The open window makes me nervous.” That was Glennis. She pushed it sharply shut.

Obviously enjoying himself, Constantine climbed back to his former perch. “The cops haven’t found the vehicle yet, but Gideon told me this afternoon that Wilson owns a black van.”

“That’s why you weren’t surprised about it,” Marguerite said, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

He chuckled. “The secret of your Sight is safe with me, babe, but it would be even safer if I knew what it was.” He let that sit, but she waited him out. After a while, he said, “Some guy with a dark van—I call him Dancing Dude—comes to the mounds to sing and pray at night from time to time. Weak voice, off-key. Wilson was humming one of my songs this morning on the mounds. That, coupled with his interest in rituals…” She felt him shrug in the night. “He was out all day in the Volvo and returned shortly after the black van showed up at your place.”

It hit her like a slap. “You already believed him innocent. You were playing me, too, first by agreeing to come to Eaton’s place, and then by messing with my defenses!”

He jumped down. “Just trying to understand you. Are you pissed off yet?”

“Always, when I’m with you.” she said irritably. “
Darlin’.
”

“So why insist on associating yourself with me? By what Tony tells me, Nathan got a whole new load of shit tonight to put out there on the Internet.”

“Yep,” she said, suddenly glum. “He’ll say I’m screwing you, Tony, and Zeb, and he’ll imply there are dozens of
others as well. He’ll say that’s what comes of being brought up surrounded by porn stars, when actually it made me completely lose interest in sex.”

“Completely?” His mouth was mere inches from hers, his aura a devilish sizzle in the hot night.

“Almost completely.” She turned away. “Please don’t do this to me if you don’t intend to follow through.” Now that he was out of the way, she pulled herself up by the drainpipe and braced herself against the window. “Eaton’s properly awake and frowning. Standing there with a mug dangling from his hand, just like the one we found on the mound. Looking incredulous. Glennis is opening her laptop, chattering like a squirrel the whole time. I bet she’s going to show him the story about you and me on the mound. Eaton’s pretty oblivious, so he may not have heard about it, or if he did, he may not have given it a second thought.”

Constantine’s voice was calm, his aura as aroused as ever. “A vehicle that I think was the same van stopped at the mounds briefly an hour or so after the concert the other night. I was meditating on Mama Mound, but I heard it pass on the road, idle for a while, and then pass the other way a while later.”

If he could do cool and indifferent, so could she. “You think that’s when I was brought there?”

“You or the paraphernalia, or both. If it wasn’t Eaton, then someone borrowed his van—probably the same someone as tonight.” He stood close below her, too close. “I might have been playing you a little, babe, but mostly I wanted to verify what Janie said. Those pics on the Internet didn’t include a close-up of the mask. Can you picture her zooming in and studying the mask so carefully that she would
recognize beads that were something like some other beads she’d seen a month ago?”

“Not likely,” Marguerite whispered, thinking furiously. Had someone described the beads to Janie? “She was hanging out with a crowd around Nathan in the Merkin earlier tonight. I suppose he might have shown people pictures of the mask, and she might have remembered Glennis’s necklace, but it seems far-fetched.” She paused. “And I can’t see her accusing Eaton to a reporter or to the cops. She can be malicious at times, but she’s not that bad.”

“My
beads
?” Eaton Wilson made for the back door and flung it open. Constantine took Marguerite by the waist and lowered her slowly, trapping her between a Leyland cypress and the fence. The heady aromas of tree and aroused hunk circled her like a lasso. Or a thirteen-foot penis. She wrapped her arms around herself, put her eyes to a crack in the fence, and tried to pay attention to what was happening in the yard.

Eaton stormed across the back porch and down the steps. The dog, which had been panting quietly until then, bounded up to him, almost tripping Glennis in the process. Eaton strode across the lawn to a shed. He flung open the door and flicked on a light. “This is where I do my pottery. They were right here, in this tin. Twenty, twenty-one or so, and they’re all gone!” He whirled in the doorway and bumped into the dithering Glennis. “You said Marguerite has the mask? Thank God some of my beads are in good hands. I don’t care about the cup, but I worked hard on those beads, and I want them back.”

“What about the mask? Isn’t it yours?”

“No! What use would it be to prance around wearing a mask? Rituals can be cathartic, but spirituality is an internal phenomenon.” He set the tin down inside the shed, switched off the light, and closed the door. “I’ll call Marguerite tomorrow.”

“Unless Constantine has it now,” Glennis said. “I don’t like that man one bit.”

“He’s written some beautiful songs,” Eaton said, whistling for the dog, but instead of following him, it decided to bark.

“He kills people!” Glennis retorted. Her aura wobbled in tune with her voice.

Eaton put an arm around her. “Hey there, Glennis. Don’t cry.” He whistled again and called the dog. “I’ll contact the police in the morning. The beads, maybe the van… I wonder if anything else has been taken.”

“But what if they come and arrest you?” Glennis said. “They might say you’re the one who chased Marguerite. Do you have an alibi?”

“Of course not. I didn’t get home till well after midnight, and after that I was in bed asleep.”

“I wish I could give you an alibi,” Glennis said, “but too many people know I wasn’t here.” Her aura flushed, and Marguerite stifled a giggle.

Eaton said, “I wouldn’t want you to lie to protect me.” He moved Glennis gently toward the house, his hand at the small of her back. “Not that I’d have any problem with you spending the night.”

Glennis’s aura blossomed, a bouquet of bright, fresh colors, shimmering with delight. How lovely for her, thought
Marguerite wistfully. She had a feeling her own lovelife would never be that simple and sweet.

The dog barked at Marguerite through the fence. She’d been doing pretty well at ignoring the rock star pressed close beside her, but now she whispered, “Can’t you stop it?” The dog barked louder.

“I don’t want to,” Constantine murmured. “It thinks it’s protecting Eaton.” The dog barked some more.

“What is it, Nellie girl? A possum?” Eaton said. “Don’t you worry about me, Glennis. Dufray doesn’t harm innocent people.” If his attitude didn’t prove he wasn’t guilty or even afraid, nothing would—unless Eaton was unbelievably devious and also spectacularly good at concealing his aura, which he wasn’t.

“He and the vigilantes have done a lot of good for Bayou Gavotte,” Eaton said. “The clubs are safer, and the tourist trade is flourishing. Apparently, he wants to talk to me. He said so on the mound this morning, right in front of Roy Lutsky.” He ushered her up the steps to the deck.

“Poor Roy. But you’re not going to go talk to Constantine, are you?” Glennis bleated.

No time like the present
, Constantine telepathed. He took Marguerite’s hand and moved quietly toward the front of the house.

“What if it’s just a ruse to get ahold of you?” Glennis cried. “Oh my God, what if Constantine followed me over here?”

Her voice faded as they reached the front yard. Constantine went up to the porch and rang the doorbell. Marguerite let Lawless out of the car and followed. Maybe a doggie
playdate would make their errand seem a little less hostile to Glennis.