Coffin Girls (Elegantly Undead: Book 1 of the Coffin Girls Witch Vampire Series) (3 page)

“We can’t figure it out either. There’s more intrigue here
than in a drawn out soap opera.” Marie observed, suddenly feeling the need for
sustenance, took a long sip of the vurricane, which remained untouched in front
of Anais.

“Y’all are over-thinking it.” Miss Suzette added while
stirring the cush-cush, a traditional Cajun breakfast of browned cornmeal made
the same way her grandmamma used to. The table was set with bowls to dish it up
and sugar and milk to have with it.  Time for her to rest her old bones
and she took her place at the table. She settled down to chat with her girls
and her favorite nephew. “Could be that he’s chosen our Anais because he thinks
that she’s incapable of doing a good job. There’s a reason he wants that witch
to see the vampire world through the eyes of a pretty, relatively wealthy
butterfly, which is what he thinks Anais is.”

Rose, or Rosella, disagreed, shaking her head and making the
red mass of curls, tied up with a bandana in the heat, bob. “Yves is a creep
but he doesn’t strike me as nefarious.” Their youngest vampire sister, she was
an exotic creation in the way found and made in New Orleans. The Spanish
contribution to her legacy was evident in her name only. The rest was all Irish
denoted by eyes as green as the hills of her fore-father’s homeland and hair as
red as her power that was fire.

“He’s a sexist jackass,” Marie agreed, shaking her head a
bit too vigorously. Her voice was unusually high in pitch, an indication that
the vurricane was alleviating her stress. “But, he makes logical sense with
this move but I don’t think he has the balls to be truly nefarious. Do you
think old vampires have balls or prunes?” Marie asked, starting to giggle
uncontrollably.

“Okay, let’s replace that vurricane with some coffee.”
Sophie felt Marie’s mood start to shift courtesy of the huge amounts of alcohol
diluting the blood in the drink and smiled at their youngest sister. Anais and
Raulf were chuckling softly, Marie’s giggles were infectious.

Marie’s eyes glowed red when Sophie took the tankard of
vurricane away, replacing it with a strong cup of coffee. Temper flashed. She
looked as though she would take a bite out of Sophie. Literally.

“Oh stuff it, Marie!” Sophie snapped. “We have to figure out
how to deal this. And it is always the one’s you don’t think have the guts that
surprise you. If you’d lay off the vurricanes you’d consider that.” It was so
unusual for Sophie to lose her temper that Marie calmed down. Fire sizzled out
into ash and tempers simmered down. Remarkably, Sophie was still fuming, her
color unusually pink. It seems as though they’d switched places, Anais observed.

“I love a good girl fight ladies, and would gladly haul in
some buckets of mud and a blow up little pool for y’all to slide around in,
pulling each other’s hair and clothes off.” Raulf wanted them to get pissed at
him, so they could get over the irritation that they were taking out on each
other and work things through. “But I think that y’all are a bit tired after
last night and wouldn’t be able to entertain me well enough.” Their look of
outrage and irritation was even worth the knock to the back of the head that
Miss Suzette gave him.

“Show some respect, boy.” His aunt scolded in the way that
reminded him that some things never changed. “We raised you better than that.”

Raulf rubbed the sting away and looked down demurely in mock
apology but his twitching lips gave him away. He’d scoped out his aunts
position before he teased them and she had been well on the other side of the
table, she sure could move fast. “Sorry ladies,” he murmured and sat down in
the chair next to Anais.

“
Merci
, Raulf.” Anais had always been well tuned to
him and had figured out what he was doing. “You wade through the excess of
oestrogen in this house and remind us to act our age in an infantile way; one
of the many reasons why we love you.” She flashed him a grateful smile and
turned to the rest of them who were now all sitting attentively at the table,
watching the spectacle with interest, as though they hadn’t been part of it.
Typical.

They were right; this was not how Yves saw her -
level-headed, a manager of a business and the head of her family. He saw fluff
and while it had irritated her in the beginning, she’d begun to appreciate his
opinion of her later in life as it gave her the distance from him that she
needed to live her life freely.

Anais looked at them, smiling in appreciation. “We’re very
lucky to have each other and I appreciate the support. Even though Yves has
given me the directive, it never once crossed any of your minds that it is only
my problem. And I feel the same way about you.” She cleared her throat. “Now,
down to business. Looking around at us, I was reminded that we’re not just five
vampire women, a Cajun cook and a handsome swamp rat.” Anais grinned at Raulf’s
scowl. “Unlike others of our kind, we’ve formed a bond of family and that is
our secret weapon. They will not see our powers, they will not see us as a unit
and this arrogant ignorance will mean that they’ll underestimate us and our
lack of ignorance about them will mean that we can anticipate their moves. Our
main concern, the threat, is disclosure. So, we have to keep our powers and
Raulf a secret, so let’s discuss that.” Anais saw Marie staring from her to
Miss Suzette. Ah, their little one was worried about their mama. Anais’s lips
curved at the sentiment. “I don’t think we need to worry about Miss Suzette.
Voodoo is a widely accepted eccentricity to ignorant tourists visiting our part
of the land and it might peak the witches’ curiosity. Even so, it is not an
uncommon practice in these parts and that would suffice as explanation.”

Raulf put his glass of mint iced tea to his mouth and drank
deep, Adam’s apple bobbing in rhythm to his gulping; very few people drank
liquids elegantly in this heat. He endorsed Anais’ observations. “That’s a fair
statement. Voodoo and Catholicism is a way of life here, especially in the
bayou.” Raulf looked at his aunt, voodoo beads and a cross swung from her, in
sync, spiritually and physically. Miss Suzette was mortal and from a long line
of voodoo priestesses who did good, not harm, with their gifts and who believed
that voodoo was God’s gift to them help others. Miss Suzette, like her mother,
grandmother and maternal predecessors, was considered as family and by default
at first, so was Raulf. As long as the vampiresses did no harm, the voodoo
women from the family would work for and with them. Raulf, being unusual
himself, found solace in the familiarity that was his family in this house.
Bayou born and bred knew how to live with the unusual and how to keep secrets;
they usually had some of their own anyway.

“And as for me,” Raulf continued, “I’m not going to stay
away just because some witch is visiting y’all. That would be cowardice. I can
disguise my wolf from them.”

Miss Suzette nodded her agreement. “Your alpha is distinct
but you know how to control your power but there’s no harm in adding some
additional magick to cover it up.” She looked at her girls next to her who were
busy guzzling their own tea. “Rose, V and I will work on something for you
after breakfast. I think we’ll need the elements of witches, magick he’s
probably familiar with and the magick he knows nothing of, my voodoo.”

“That takes care of Raulf. What do we do about us?” enquired
V.

“Same thing,” answered Anais, “we use magick to disguise the
witch power in y’all. We can’t explain how we can walk in the sun, need to eat
food and basically act human. He’s spent some time with Yves and who knows
else, so the best I can come up with is for us to pretend to be normal vampires
while they’re staying here. We have the wedding tomorrow to prepare for and
execute, which thankfully, despite being crazy-busy, has given us an excuse to
delay the witches’ immediate descent onto the plantation so we don’t need to
play nocturnal until then. But it also means that we’ll have to rely heavily on
Miss Suzette and the human staff for events after that.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Miss Suzette offered consolation.
“I’ve seen y’all run so many of these do’s that it won’t be trouble at all to
step in for y’all.”

“Great.” Rose acquiesced. “I can do some research to see if
I can find out anything about this Conall O’Leary.” Rose would do her part with
her mad computer skills. During one of her ‘sabbaticals’ from the plantation
she’d pretended to be a computer science student at an Ivy League university
and can hack with the best of them. “And since we’re in agreement to use our
magick to help us in this situation, maybe Miss Suzette, V and I can reinforce
the wards and put up some new ones.” Because one never assumed the use of
someone else’s gift, she looked at the other two ladies who both indicated
their support. 

Anais looked at Marie speculatively, “Marie, do you think we
can ask the ghosts for help?” Marie, as a necromancer, had power over the dead
(gratefully not the undead) and included their resident ghosts as part of her
circle of friends.

“I can do that. You know they can’t fight, right?” Marie
enquired. At Anais’ nod she continued, “But they can act as an alarm. They’ve
been living happily here for some time and we’ve never asked them for anything
so I don’t foresee resistance from them.”

“And that leaves Sophie and I free to figure out how we’re
going to run the business without stepping into sunlight and to get the
accommodation ready for Conall and his guards.” Anais concluded. “And we’ll see
to the final details of tomorrow’s wedding.”

“Wait,” Raulf stopped her as she was about to get up from
the table. Concern and protectiveness etched into his face. “What is this about
accommodation? Surely you’re not thinking of putting them up? That will
definitely let the wolf out of the bag!”

“Of course not! We’re not idiots!” Anais rolled her eyes at
him. “We’re putting them in the refurbished slave quarters that we use for
unexpected human guests.”

“Cool.” Raulf felt that it was still too close for comfort.
“Then there’s space for me here.”

Raulf made it a fact, not a request, irritating Anais. There
was an over-abundance of attractive, domineering men ordering her about lately.
“And why would you think that?” 

“Because I’m movin’ in.” Raulf countered.

“I repeat,” Anais gritted her teeth, let a bit of sarcasm
roll out, “why would you think that?”

Realising that cockiness wasn’t going to get him anywhere,
he changed tactics. “Look, I know that y’all are powerful vampires and can take
care of yourselves. I respect that. I can help though – I’ll be an extra eye
looking out for you. You’re like family, I want to help. Please.”

“That’s sweet Raulf but I don’t want to put you in danger.”
Anais meant every word. He was a dear part of their lives and her
responsibility, just as all of them around the table were.

Gone was the charming, affable man and instead, steel, as
sharp as claws, echoed in his voice. “That’s sweet but don’t insult me, Anais.
I’m an alpha and if I can protect my pack, the witches will be tasty snacks if
they step out of line – to hell with Yves,” he snarled.

Anais shrugged, not wanting to insult him further and
needing to end this conversation with the mountain of work waiting for them.
“Suit yourself. We know you’re big and strong. It doesn’t mean that we don’t
love you and want to protect you just as you want to protect us. Think about
that before you jump down our throats.”

Raulf held up his hands in resignation. “Okay. Point taken.
Humor an old friend then?” He cast his eyes over them all and happily noted the
pride that shone for him on Miss Suzette’s face.

“We would love to accept your offer of added protection,
Raulf. Thank you.” Sophie stepped in, sensing that someone needed to calm down
irritable tempers, so she hooked into all of their emotions and sent a trickle
of calm outwards. “When will you be moving in?”

“Probably tomorrow. I need to inform the pack and make
contingency plans for my absence.”

She inclined her head at Raulf, “
Merci
again for your
support. We’ll prepare the guest room for you.”

Anais got up from the table. “Speaking of preparing
accommodations, Sophie, you and I had better get going. We also need to make
contingency plans for the business. Ladies, Raulf, thanks for the support. Now,
let’s get cracking, shall we?”

Anais moved through the crowd on the riverside lawn, running
her gaze over the hordes of people scattered on the summer’s lawn. It was two
days since the Vampire Council’s ball and the day before the witches were due
to arrive – strange, Anais shook her head at the irony, for a vampire to count
in days rather than decades. Bringing her attention back to the wedding, she
breathed in the sense of contentment and accomplishment of an event going well.

Circles of women stood, gossiping in evening dresses;
clusters of men tugged irritably at their ties, spurred on by the heat, as
though they were being strangled. With the exception of the clothing worn and
the open acceptance of diversity in class and race, this plantation social
gathering in 2012 could be mistaken for those held in the mansion more than a
hundred years ago. The combination of men, women, music, food and drink led to
a predictable outcome that was constituted of hearts mended, excited and
broken. Just as predictable was that the imposing mansion took centre stage
while guests, honored to be in its presence, ate and made merry in or around
it.

Laughter competed with the lively sound of the jazz band
playing on the temporary stage to the left of the palatial plantation house,
where the lawn met the lily-adorned pond. Couples, lured by the music,
intoxicated by the heavy, warm summer’s night, danced the Cajun two-step on the
temporary dance floor. They’d placed the band between the pond and the dance
floor as added insurance against guests falling unwittingly into the dark
waters.