"I'm not really all that hungry," Elizabeth protested, embarrassed by the sudden attentiveness. "I don't think my stomach will catch up with me until tomorrow."
Beauray squinted at her, the blue laser beams boring into her eyes. "You sure?"
"I'm fine. Really," she insisted, though touched by his concern. "Tell you what. If it will make you feel better, I'll have another candy bar. They do sell them here, don't they?" she asked, playfully.
Beauray studied her for a moment, then shrugged.
"Well, as soon as your stomach catches up with you, you've got to promise to let me treat you to some of our fine N'Awlins cookin'. In the meantime, though, if it's a candy bar you want, I've got just the thing for you."
Taking her by the elbow, he steered her off the street and through the door of one of the numerous T-shirt shops that prospered between the bars and dance clubs.
The icy blast of the shop's air conditioning was such a welcome relief from the saunalike streets that for a moment Elizabeth thought seriously of asking Beauray to continue the search alone while she waited here. A few breaths later, however, her sense of duty and her companion returned to her at the same time.
"Here. Try one of these."
He thrust a cellophane envelope into her hands, containing what looked for all the world like a light brown cow pat... from an unhealthy cow.
"What is it?" she asked, trying to keep the suspicion out of her voice.
"They're called pralines," he said. "It's a favorite candy in these parts. Go ahead and try it. They're good."
Unable to think of a graceful evasion, Elizabeth unwrapped his offering and took a cautious bite.
It was heaven!
Like most of her countrymen, Elizabeth had an incredible sweet tooth, and the candy she was now sampling was like nothing she had ever had before. It tasted almost like pure turbinado sugar, but with a smoother texture; like a very sweet toffee, but soft, and had a goodly dollop of chopped pecans mounded in the center.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like something more solid to eat?"
Beauray's voice brought her back to her senses, and she realized guiltily that she had wolfed down almost the entire praline in a very few bites.
"No. This is fine," she said hastily. "You're right. They're quite good."
Her companion frowned at her for a moment more, then shrugged.
"All right. If you say so," he said. "I surely do want to see you some time when you do have an appetite, though."
Elizabeth was inwardly writhing with embarrassment over her brief display of gluttony as they made their way back out onto the street. She was not, however, so uncomfortable as to fail to mark the location of the store in her mind. Before her stay in New Orleans was over, she planned to stock up on a few boxes of those pralines. Delicately, she licked her fingers, and smiled blithely at Beauray. Maybe they even had a mail order business so she could order more from England. A few of these would go a long way toward sweetening Ringwall's sour temper when she gave her expense report.
Music, music was everywhere in this city. Fee drifted from door to door, borne on an energy wave that carried her along the street without feeling its cobbles under her feet. The crowds were thick, but no one bumped into her. Fee found herself walking to the beat of the music pouring out of doorways, down from balconies, unexpectedly around corners from impromptu groups who had sat down wherever the muse had struck them, never paying attention to the people passing by. She might have been alone in this mob of people who were simply enjoying themselves.
She almost wished she was.
"Wait up," panted Robbie-cursed-Unterburger, striding to catch up with Fee and Lloyd on her short little legs. They'd almost lost her in the last crowd clustered around the entrance to a blues bar. They hadn't, more's the pity.
All of them were toddling along back there, her band, Green Fire, and her chief techies, but Fee resented Robbie most of all. She was so wet. The girl wanted to get close to Lloyd, and it killed her that she couldn't. You could see the pain and frustration in her eyes. Too bad. Lloyd belonged to Fee. Such a hunk, and so good when it counted. Like later on, if the music continued to turned her on as it was doing right now.
The blare of horns and pounding of drums and pianos pouring out of storefronts interrupted the eternal argument going on between the members of the band. They were always getting into it. You would never know that they were the best of friends, the way they sniped. It was as though Fee had three little brothers, though every one of the men was older than she. She was their leader, literally, figuratively and spiritually. She liked to think of herself as guiding them—although this was where she and Eddie disagreed the most. He could be so... Christian sometimes, positively pushing all the guilt buttons from her Church of England upbringing.
She let the sounds of New Orleans carry her along. This was so primevally strong, almost cavemanlike, smooth and rough at the same time, like the best whisky. The music filled her head. She scarcely felt the pavement under her feet. She breathed it in like the air, letting it take her where it willed.
"Let's go in somewhere," Fitzgibbon protested.
"No, Fitzy," Fee said, holding up her hand like an Indian scout. "Not until I find the right place."
"I want a drink," Voe said.
"You always want a drink," Eddie complained. He was such a Puritan, worse than Lizzie Mayfield. How very strange to have her appear out of nowhere. It was like old times having her around. How things had changed. Back then, they were earnest young women trying to earn degrees, and pretty good friends, really. Now Fee was rich and famous, and Liz was—what, a spy? But they still had something in common: magic. Fee pouted. Not that Liz truly believed in the connection. Not yet. But she would.
"Come on, my feet hurt," Pat Jones, the publicist, complained, falling a few feet behind on the narrow pavement. Some of the others joined in the grumbling.
"Enough!" Michael ordered them, spinning around quick as a snake striking. "You know there's no hurrying her."
A long way off, a plaintive note rang in the hot, moist air. Fionna raised her head, like a hunting dog hearing the horn. She smiled at the faint sound. "That way," she said.
It may have been due to the sugar rush from the pralines, or just that she was starting to relax a bit in this new, strange environment, but soon after merging onto the street again, Elizabeth found herself seeing the Quarter in a whole new light. To be accurate, she found herself feeling it differently.
There was an energy here, a pulse of life that blended with the beat of the ever-present music, at the same time exciting and relaxing. Attuned to Earth Magic as she was, Elizabeth was startled to find herself involuntarily drawing power from the streets... something that she rarely if ever could do in a city. She had been prepared for New Orleans to be different, even frightening. This new aspect, however, took her completely by surprise.
"My grandma and your grandma... Sittin' by the fire..."
"Gotta cigarette, man?"
"Carriage rides! Right here, folks!"
Even the scattered fragments of music and street pitches were taking on a different sound to her. Rather than sounding like random noise, they were like the fleeting bird calls in a heavily wooded area. True, they were still uncomfortably loud, but no longer the jarring, almost threatening cacophony it had seemed at first. She would have liked to relax and enjoy the experience, if not for the fact they still hadn't found Fionna.