I raised my brows and looked down at Perry. She was shaking her head in confusion. “Exception to what?”
“Get out,” she suddenly yelled, her glinting eyes on Perry now. “Get out, all of you, you too, Rose! I’m tired of people just showing up in my life and wanting things from me, disturbing everything. You’re all a bunch of idiots, dabbling in things you don’t understand, bending the laws with no regard for this world or the one next to us, or the one above us or the one under us. I’m too old to deal with this baloney anymore.”
And with that she flopped back on the bed and pointed at the netting. “Now close the netting and leave.”
Rose quickly did as she asked, looking flustered, and we all got out of that room as quickly as we could. Rose closed the door behind her and we scrambled out into the kitchen just as Ambrosia was coming toward us with a pot of tea.
She gave us a waning smile. “I suppose I should have warned you that she’s got a bit of dementia and has been talking gibberish for the last few days now.”
“Yeah,” I said carefully, “a little warning would have been nice.”
She beamed at me, her teeth so white, lips so full. I felt kind of dazzled. “I’ll go bring her the tea, but I’d love to talk to you guys more about all of this, even if she doesn’t want to. I have a friend whose blues band is playing in the city at Deep N’ Easy. Why don’t we all meet there tonight? I’ll even put you on the guest list.”
I looked to the others for their opinion. The women looked less enthused than the men, but Rose still nodded brusquely and said, “Sounds good, see you there.”
We left Maryse’s swamp house in a hurry, and all I could think about as we got back in the truck was how that frail old witch said she knew me. She obviously did have dementia, I mean she was surprised that Maximus wasn’t immortal anymore and probably saw a bunch of pixies dancing around her head, but it was the conviction in her words that was doing me in.
I had too many strange messages for one day. The Big Easy was turning out to be harder than I thought.
CHAPTER NINE
“Well, what did you think about that?” Perry asked as we closed the bedroom door behind us. It was the first time we’d been alone since the morning, and the whole drive back into NOLA was filled with shitty radio, none of us even daring to talk about what had just happened. Well, I wanted to talk about it, but both Rose and Maximus were so uncomfortably tight-lipped that I wouldn’t even get any joy out of ribbing him.
I walked straight over to the bed and flopped face-down on it. I felt utterly and completely drained. I turned my face to look at her. “Come lie with me,” I mumbled against the sheets.
She lay down beside me, on her back, her eyes on the ceiling. “That was weird.”
“What isn’t weird anymore?” I pointed out.
“True,” she said, folding her hands across her stomach. She turned to look at me, her expression earnest. “Have you seen that woman before?”
“The crazy Mambo?” I shook my head. “No, never. Granted, I couldn’t really see her since she’s apparently a vampire as well. But no. You believe me, right?”
“Of course I do. I just think it’s weird.”
“As weird as her saying Maximus is immortal?”
“If not weirder. Obviously she is just a crazy old kook.” Crazy, and yet part of me wanted to believe her.
“She’s white, too,” she said. “I expected her to be Haitian or something.”
“Well, Ambrosia’s of mixed descent.”
At the mention of Ambrosia’s name, Perry stiffened. Interesting. It really did seem like my woman was jealous and I was finding it immensely flattering. I spent so much time wondering about Perry’s true feelings for me, if they were more than a sexual fixation, so it was really nice to see she cared about me at least that much. I really hoped I wouldn’t use it to my advantage, because that was definitely something the old Dex would do—make them jealous to see if they cared.
Nope, I told myself, you have to be more mature than that. I reached over and tugged at the band of her leggings, trying to get her attention.
“Hey, kiddo.”
She relaxed and smiled at me. “Hey. Sorry, I guess I’m just tired too. Jet lag finally catching up to me.”
“We could nap until we went to the bar.”
“Right. Like we would ever just nap.”
I frowned in mock disgust. “Hey, you don’t see me pawing you right now, do you?”
I turned over on to my side and pulled her to me, wrapping my arm around her waist until she was pressed up against me. “Let’s just sleep,” I whispered in her hair. “We’ve earned it.”
We were out in seconds flat.
***
Deep N’ Easy was located on Frenchman street, just out of the Quarter. Perry and I trailed behind Rose and Maximus as we walked down the rough sidewalk, peering at the never ending vibrancy around us, from the open-air bars spilling out onto the street, to the endless music coming out from all directions, to the various tattoo shops.
I pointed to one of them. “Ever think of getting a tattoo?”
She shrugged and bit her lip. “I have some ideas…”
“Tell me,” I said. I never pegged Perry to be one of those types; she seemed too indecisive for that.
She shook her head, suddenly coy. “No, it would be a surprise.”
“A surprise?” I both loved and hated surprises. “Is it a picture of my cock? Did my letterman jacket give you the idea?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not telling you.” She kept walking, trying to catch up with Maximus and Rose. I waited a few beats, concentrating on her, hoping I could get a thought out of her and find out what the surprise was. All I got was the sharp stab of a headache instead.
I hurried after her and she tossed me a smug look over her shoulder. She was enjoying her tattoo secret too much. I supposed I hadn’t been too forthcoming with my “Within your Light I Lose the Madness” on my back either.
“Is it a fleur-de-lis?” I asked, rolling up my t-shirt sleeve to show her the one on my insanely buff arm. “Considering there are fleur-de-lis all over the place here, you’d fit right in. And we’d match.”
Her eyes paused on my muscles briefly before her blasé look returned. “That’s pretty lame, Dex, even for you.”