Free Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson

a girl’s thoughts to the Promised Land. Good thing I don’t notice stuff like that.
    “If you want to search me for more weapons, I’m game.”
    My eyes shot back to his, and I felt my cheeks flush, hot and bothered on the way to angry.
    Leave it to a guy to open his mouth and ruin a perfectly good moment.
    I’m not sure my fight with Lafitte would have ended well, but I’d finally gained an upper hand with the wolfsbane, and it
infuriated me for some ripped Romeo with a gun to come in and blast him. For one thing, it broke magical treaties. These days, even the undead have legal rights in the preternatural community.
    For another, regular bullets don’t faze the undead, which meant this guy was packing special ammunition. You can’t really kill the historical undead anyway—you simply send them back to the Beyond so they’ll be truly and righteously irate next time they come across. There is always a next time for someone as resourceful as Jean Lafitte.
    Finally, deep down, I didn’t think Lafitte planned to kill me. He might have an eighteenth-century view of women and a nasty temper but, by all accounts, he was a shrewd and practical man. He’d eventually have realized hurting me wouldn’t be worth the trouble it would cause with the Elders. If he’d really wanted me dead, I would be. His aim wasn’t that bad.
    I tried to convey all this in my glare. “Who are you, anyway?” I had an annoying urge to straighten my hair and wipe the plaster dust off my cheeks. And find more substantial clothes.
    “Don’t bowl me over with gratitude,” he said in a baritone drawl, relaxing his posture.
    He was awfully sure I wouldn’t snatch up the shotgun and blast his arrogant, black-clad self all the way to St. Bernard Parish. If he laughed at me, I might try. At close range, I’d at least clip an arm or leg. It would be a pity to mar such beauty but sometimes sacrifices are called for.
    Instead, I chose the moral high road. “Thank you. Now, who are you? How did you know what kind of ammunition to use?”
    He stepped around me to examine Lafitte’s body, which had turned translucent on its way to disappearing. With a few more seconds and a soft whisper of energy, the pirate disappeared back into the Beyond along with his original weapons, leaving only an evaporating puddle of ectoplasm and the gun.

    I’d have to find a better hiding place for the gun next time, and there would be a next time. Jean Lafitte knew where I lived now, and eventually he’d return for round three. I sighed, wondering if he’d left me any cheap rum.
    The Man in Black didn’t seem disconcerted by the body’s disappearance, another clue that he knew his way around the magical block. He picked up Lafitte’s gun, popped the clip out, and laid it on the table next to the shotgun.
    I was tired, bloody, my legs hurt, and my magic-hangover was pounding the back of my eyeballs like a woodpecker. “Last time, Terminator. Talk to me. Otherwise, you can leave—with my undying gratitude, of course.”
    One corner of his mouth curved up as he reached in his pocket and tossed a small leather case in my direction. Black, of course. I felt it hit the floor by my feet, but I didn’t break my stare. We weren’t playing charades.
    Give the man two points for reading body language. He finally broke the stalemate, walking around the parlor and peering out windows and inside bookshelves and cabinets while he talked. Snooping, in other words. “I’m Alexander Warin, and I came here to find Drusilla Jaco, also known as DJ. I assume that’s you.”
    He looked back at me, raising one dark eyebrow. “Of course, no one told me what to expect from my new partner. I read your file, but without photos I was expecting the robe, the wand. You know: more Merlin, less Glinda the Good Witch.”
    I gritted my teeth, trying to decide what needed addressing first: partner or file or witch . Best to stay on the moral high road—he was trying to push my buttons