Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

“At a hundred-year-old bar for two-hundred-year-old Supernaturals?” How frightening could it be? At least that’s what I tried to tell myself.

He shrugged. “Might as well start there. Knowing Abraham, it won’t be as easy to find him as we think.”

We started up the stairs and into the bright sunlight that would take us to the Dark Side o’ the Moon.

The street—a row of shabby bars, sandwiched between more shabby bars—was deserted, which made sense, considering it was still so early in the day. It looked like all the other streets we’d seen since the Doorwell brought us up into the infamous French Quarter of New Orleans. The ornately wrought iron railings swept across every balcony and along every building, even curving around the street corners. In the stark morning light, the faded colors of the painted plaster were sun-bleached and peeling. The road was lined with trash, trash piled upon more trash—the only remaining evidence of the night before.

“I’d hate to see how it looks around here the morning after Mardi Gras,” I said, looking for a way to pick through the

mountain of garbage standing between me and the sidewalk. “Remind me never to go to a bar.”

“I don’t know. We had some good times back at Exile. You and me and Rid, causing trouble on the dance floor.” John smiled and I blushed, remembering.

arms around me

dancing, hurried

Ethan’s face

pale and worried

I shook my head, letting the words fall away. “An underground hole for derelict Supernaturals isn’t what I was talking about.”

“Ah, come on. We weren’t exactly derelicts. Well, you weren’t. Rid and me, we probably qualified.” He pushed me toward the doorway playfully.

I shoved him back, a little less playfully. “Stop it. That was a million years ago. Maybe two million. I don’t want to think about it.”

“Come on, Lena. I’m happy. You’re—”

I shot him a look, and he cut himself off. “You will be happy again, I promise. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

I looked at him, standing there next to me in the middle of a run-down side street in the French Quarter far too early in the morning, helping me look for the not-quite-a-man John hated more than anyone in the universe. He had more of a reason to hate Abraham Ravenwood than I did. And he wasn’t saying a word about what I was making him do.

Who would’ve thought John would end up being one of the best guys I’d ever met? And who would’ve thought John would end up volunteering to risk his life to bring back the love of mine?

I smiled at him, though I felt like crying. “John?”

“Yeah?” He wasn’t paying attention. He was looking up at the bar signs, probably wondering how he was going to get up the nerve to go inside any of them. They all looked like serial killer hangouts.

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” Now he was listening. Confused, but listening.

“About this. That it has to involve you. And if you don’t want it to—I mean, if we don’t find the Book—”

“We’ll find it.”

“I’m just saying, I won’t blame you if you don’t want to go through with it. Abraham and everything.” I couldn’t bear to do it to him. Not him and not Liv—no matter how much had gone down between us. No matter how much she had believed she loved Ethan.

Before.

“We’ll find the Book. Come on. Quit talking crazy.” John kicked a clearing in the trash heap, and we made our way past the empty beer bottles, past the soggy napkins, and up to the sidewalk.

By the time we made it halfway down the block, we were looking through the open doorways to see if anyone was inside. To my surprise, there were people hiding in the woodwork—literally. Slumping inside the darkened doorways. Sweeping the trash from deserted, shadowy alleys. Even silhouetted on a few of the empty balconies.

The French Quarter wasn’t that different from the Caster world, I realized. Or from Gatlin County. There was a world within a world, all hidden in plain sight.

You just had to know where to look.