Free 02 Seekers by Lynnie Purcell Page B

others.
    Daniel’s eyes became lost in a thousand memories as we passed city after city. Margaret and Jackson were silent – not unusual for Margaret – but I could feel an awareness that wasn’t there in the mountains. It was as if a part of their history was found in the history of the place we were in. It was a past I could only ever know secondhand.
    The city of New Orleans did not tremble and fall to the ground at our approach. In fact, our entrance into the city of soul, voodoo, and blues was unremarkable. I perked up from my book as the city appeared and watched as the buildings passed by.
    Margaret knew the city well, so we were spared the bickering of lost tourists without a map. She drove us to the French Quarter, an area I only remembered vaguely, and let the van idle on the corner of a fancy hotel. We unpacked our stuff in front of elegant, black ironwork of the hotel then she drove off again to ditch the van and find another way back. We had all thought we would be less noticeable without the thing lingering on the corner.
    As she pulled away, I settled my bag over my shoulder and breathed in the moisture of the
    summer air. Droplets of rain clung to the narrow streets, and I knew we had just missed a
    rainstorm. Darkness had covered the city with the night, but the smell of the storm was
    invigorating and renewing. Something in the pit of my stomach responded to the flow of the city, and I, more than ever, agreed with my previous statement. A place could have power. This place was certainly working powerful magic on me.
    Daniel gestured with his head for me to follow him inside the hotel. I remembered our mission, and the fact that nowhere was safe, with the gesture. In that one gesture I saw tension and a cool alertness to the fact that nowhere was really private.
    The interior of the hotel was elegant, yet simple, as if the designer had known elegance wasn’t about cheap baubles meant to distract to beholder. Gold walls and a thick staircase dominated the lobby. Carefully done flower arrangements accentuated the color scheme. People moved around the lobby area, some headed to a late dinner, other the arts scene nearby. Wrapped up in their destinations, no one looked at us twice.
    A man wearing the pressed uniform of the staff perked up when he saw us and quickly stopped texting on his phone. “Can I help you?” he asked, his voice thick with a southern dialect even King’s Cross couldn’t manage.
    Daniel smiled, and his whole face shifted into a look I hated. It was the look that meant he was about to get his own way. It took him a while, the clerk being particularly stubborn, but a hefty tip, and many smiles later, Daniel managed to get us a room paid in cash up front, no questions asked. The man’s eyes raked over our faces carefully, cataloguing details to spread to the rest of the staff later. I just hoped it wasn’t the sort of details that got us noticed by the wrong sorts of people. I assumed it would remain fodder for the bored staff until the next big mystery came along.
    Key cards finally in hand, we went to our rooms to get settled in. As Daniel shut the door to our room with his foot, checking his phone with one hand and carrying his bag with the other, I said in a low voice, “You think this place is low key? If snobby from downstairs doesn’t inform the whole French Quarter about us by the morning I’ll be shocked.”
    Daniel looked up and shut his phone again with a shrug. “They have cable here…and wireless internet.”
    “Most hotels do…” I said.
    “Serenity suggested it,” he said reluctantly. “This area is where our kind with lots of cash stay.
    Watchers with cash always have bodyguards. Starting something here is extremely foolish, so it’s safe.”
    He moved past me and sat down on the large bed. I kept my place in the center of the room. “I knew you’d find a way to be all protective despite being away…” I hesitated. “It seems like we’re putting a lot