“I forgot today was Halloween,” she murmured.
The corner of his thin lips lifted. “You didn’t notice all the people in the airport in costumes?”
She shrugged. “New Orleans.”
“Fair enough,” Brendan said.
In the distance, she could see Edison lights strung up between streetlamps. The entire fleet of League vans was parked around the town square in front of a large whitewashed parish hall, their back doors open and decorated with various spooky-but-bloodless family-friendly themes. People were stationed at each van, handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters.
“Well, that explains where the vans were,” Brendan muttered.
The closer they got to the town square, the more realistic the costumes became. Two people in over-sized porcupine costumes were handing out candied apples. A woman with extremely detailed fairy wings danced beside a pile of bread near the base of a fountain. A curvy brunette wearing a Wonder Woman costume appeared to be riding on the back of a full-size adult brown bear. And curled around a gazebo, blowing smoke rings into the air over a giant arrangement of pumpkins in all shapes and shades of orange…
“That’s a dragon,” Cordelia said.
“Aye.” Brendan stopped the van and marveled at the massive green and gold creature receiving ear-scratches from a blonde, pregnant woman in a medieval princess costume.
“A real-life dragon. Like Game of Thrones without the shockingly disappointing ending,” Cordelia said.
Brendan nodded. “Aye.”
She’d known that Mystic Bayou was occupied by shifters, but seeing this…all those people in costumes; they weren’t in costumes. These were people in their shifter forms, out in the open, handing out treats to children. It was different than the League office, where “alternate natures” were acknowledged, but no one just walked around the hallways in their other skin. What was it going to be like living here?
“This place is really fecking weird. And I say that as someone well-acquainted with the really fecking weird,” Brendan said.
She nodded. “On this, we agree.”
2
Brendan
All Brendan O’Connor wanted was a beer and some peace and quiet after a grueling day of travel. Instead, he got screaming children and worse—an Americanized Samhain.
He supposed it could have been worse. At least it wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day.
Brendan parked the van near the parish hall and climbed out. The air was marginally cooler here, but it was still bizarre to see an autumnal celebration while it was so damnably hot outside. The only thing between him and the crowd was the large, pumpkin-ringed fountain, its stones carved into bears, porcupines, and unicorns huddled with fairies and humans under the shelter of a dragon’s proud wings. Brendan’s sense of tradition was somewhat mollified by the appearance of carved turnips tucked in with the other jack-o’-lanterns. At least someone around here seemed to respect the roots of the holiday.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw his companion staring at the door handle like it was some insurmountable hurdle. The lady was a puzzle, that was for sure. She’d looked like she was ready to fall over when he found her waiting on the sidewalk. Not that she was any less gorgeous for it—dark hair that framed a fine-boned face and eyes big and blue enough to drown in, and those lips. He’d never understood what people were on about when they talked about a Cupid’s bow of a mouth, but he saw it now. And some perverse part of his brain kept wondering what it would feel like to lick that tiny divot on top of her lips…which would probably result in her smacking him—rightly so.
Inappropriate licking fantasies aside, there was a sort of delicacy about her that made him want to tuck her into his pocket and keep her safe from the world, a destructive impulse that had him forgetting all his proper manners and clamming up so tight he couldn’t even bother to tell her his name. But then she was all at once standoffish and distant, and he thought perhaps it was for the best. It didn’t do for a bansidhe to go around adopting stray damsels, no matter how fine. It only led to misery and marriages like his Auntie Bridget’s.
But then she’d grabbed him, and he’d been so afraid of what he might see that he’d damn near run off the road. He’d honed his “gift” over the years so that he only sensed immediately dire situations, but still, he rarely took the chance of casual contact. And the way she’d clung to him, the expression of wonder on her face when she told him she felt nothing from him—ouch—it was enough to make him want to pull the van over and kiss her senseless. And as she seemed like a generally sensible lady—the reserved manner, the travel clothes that wouldn’t show the wrinkles, the roomy shoulder bag with one of those slash-proof straps—that would likely take a very long time. But he was willing to devote himself to the task.
He watched Cordelia take a deep breath and open the door. She looked over the crowded square as if it was occupied by the spawn of hell. He circled the van and stood next to her, united in dread. What in the hell had he gotten himself into?
He’d been perfectly fine running the League’s underground artifacts warehouse in County Clare, thank you very much. The remote Burren area had interconnected caves and caverns aplenty to use as safe underground storage for western Europe’s more dangerous magical articles. He had his little cottage and his large flat-screen telly and he thought that’s all he’d need in life. But then his boss had come to him with this “opportunity” and like an eejit, he’d jumped at the obscene amount of money he was being offered for a few months’ work. Being a banshee wasn’t exactly rife with financial security.
“Fieldwork, they said,” Brendan muttered. “See more of the world, they said. Get the fresh air into your lungs, they said.”
Cordelia snickered and the relaxed, amused expression on her face tugged him out of his foul mood. His brow wrinkled, because normally his moods were a bit less tuggable. He’d been known to brood…extensively. It was the nature of the beast, so to speak.
“Is that really what got you out here? A rousing speech full of cheerful lifestyle suggestions?” Cordelia asked.
Something about the way she said ‘a rousing’ did terrible and wonderful things to the direction of his blood flow. He was blaming jet lag. It was the only possible explanation for this loss of control over his person.
“Well, that and the money,” said Brendan.
“Oh, good, I was worried about your gullibility for a moment there.”
Across the square, Wonder Woman slid off the bear’s back and he nuzzled at her leg as she passed. The bear ambled around the corner of the parish hall. The medieval lady gave the dragon one last pat and trotted across the square, one hand supporting the slight bump of her belly. She waved to two men dressed like Disney princes, who stopped handing out candy, bowed gallantly to several enraptured little girls, and began unloading the supplies from the van.
“Hi!” the medieval princess called, grinning widely. “You must be Brendan and Cordelia. I’m so sorry you had to drive yourselves out and serve as delivery drivers, but as you can see, it’s just been so crazy here lately. We need all hands pitching in. I’m Jillian Ramsay, acting executive director of the Mystic Bayou project.”