asked as Brandt looked over his wound. It wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding quite a lot.
They would have to get Thiago and Shawn looking somewhat presentable if they
were to be going anywhere public. They were both covered in blood.
“Doesn’t matter,” Shawn said quietly as he laid his head against the seat and
closed his eyes. “He’s dead. Doesn’t matter.”
“Shawn! Get your head out of your ass, please, and think!” Thiago growled
angrily. “Gray was trying to protect Remy, just like we were.”
Shawn growled and snorted at this, but Thiago continued regardless.
“Do you really think Gray would have told us Remy was dead? The only
thing he would tell us was what he wanted us to know, and he knows that if we
thought Remy was dead we wouldn’t come after him.”
“You think he’s alive then?” Carl asked from the front seat.
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“I don’t know. But we have to operate under the assumption that he is, and
that he’ll try to get back to us,” Thiago said gruffly as Brandt poked at the wound.
“Stop it, dammit! That hurts!”
“It’s stopped bleeding, hasn’t it?” Brandt responded defensively as he stuffed
the bandana into the gaping wound.
“Then stop messing with it!” Thiago shouted.
Brandt huffed and sat back in his seat, after one more poke for good
measure. Shawn slid against him and buried his head in Brandt’s chest. Brandt
wrapped a protective arm around the man.
“Shawn,” Thiago persisted.
“What?” Shawn said miserably.
“Did you have a location? A fallback?”
“There’s a bar in the French Quarter,” Shawn said in a hoarse, muffled
voice. Brandt held him closer and he could feel Shawn shaking uncontrollably.
“The French Quarter? You’re talking New Orleans? Like… Louisiana?”
Nikolaus asked as he negotiated the traffic distractedly.
“Yeah,” Shawn affirmed and he cleared his throat and sat back up. “It’s
called The Morgue,” Shawn said wryly.
“The Morgue?” Thiago asked incredulously.
“Remy’s idea of humor. If we’re separated for any reason, we… we wait a
month,” Shawn told them with difficulty. “Then, after the month, we spend two hours every night for a week, ten to midnight, at The Morgue. Waiting,” he said sadly. “But that was before Katrina hit.”
“Do you think it’s still there?” Carl asked doubtfully.
“No,” Shawn answered. “No, it closed down before the storm. We never
thought to make new arrangements. I don’t know what’s in its place, now.”
“If you don’t have new ones, then we follow the old ones. We don’t have
any other choice,” Thiago said as he twisted and tried to get a look at his wound.
“We go to ground for a month? Where?” Nikolaus asked.
“No sé,” Thiago admitted candidly. “Just keep driving. We’ll think of
something.”
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PART FIVE: PEPPER IN THE GUMBO
I.
“REMY?” the soft voice inquired through the haze
“Go ’way.”
“Remy, open your eyes,” the voice ordered insistently.
“Fiank.”
“Well, if you feel well enough to cuss at me, then you’re doing better than I
thought,” Gray said quietly.
Remy scrunched his eyes tight before trying to open them. Only one of them
actually managed the feat, but that was enough to allow him to survey his
surroundings. He was in yet another hotel room. Gray sat in a chair beside the bed, looking down at him worriedly.
“Where are mes pattes?” Remy asked finally, referring to his ‘paws.’
“You’ve still got them,” Gray said with a slight smile, knowing Remy and
his language well enough to know that he was asking where his toes were. “I gave
you some morphine. You’ve been shot.”
“Mes pattes,” Remy muttered as he drifted back into oblivion. “I want my
toes back.”
Several hours later, Remy awoke to a dark room. His toes were back, the
little vagrants, and so was the pain in his upper body. Fucking toes. They always caused problems.
Remy turned his head slightly and saw Gray sitting in the same chair. The
man was slumped slightly, and Remy was fairly certain he was asleep. Remy cleared his throat and whispered Gray’s name. Gray jumped to his feet, his hand on his gun, and Remy watched him with wide eyes.
“Remy?” Gray said quietly as he took a step closer to the bed and looked
down at Remy.
“What happened?” Remy asked in a hoarse voice.
“You were shot,” Gray explained.
“I remember that part. Why did you drag me away, Boss?” Remy asked in a
weak voice. He wanted to be angry but he didn’t have the energy.
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“He tried to kill you,” Gray answered in surprise.
“No,” Remy protested as he shook his head back and forth. “No, he tried to
kill you.”
“But–”
“Thiago wanted you with us. We needed your help.”
“But–”
“We couldn’t tell the others you were working for Thi,” Remy said as his
voice got stronger.
“But–”
“Contact Thiago, Boss. Tell him we’re both okay.”
“I’ve been trying. I’ve been rethinking my original plan a bit, but I can’t get
him.”
“What? Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Gray said sadly. He passed his hand over Remy’s forehead
and whispered, “Go back to sleep, Dixie.”
“What plan?” Remy asked as the gentle hand threatened to lull him back to
sleep.
“They think you’re dead. I told them as much before I turned off your comm.
You’re free of them, if you want to be.”
Remy opened his mouth to protest, but sleep overtook him before he
managed it.
A week later, Remy and Gray stood side by side across the street from the
building in which Brandt’s flat had been located. Remy’s shoulders slumped
dejectedly as he took in the remains of the flat.
“What the hell?” Gray said under his breath.
“Brandt,” Remy responded with certainty.
“He blew up the flat?”
“Looks like.”
“Why?”
Remy shrugged as best he could in the makeshift sling and looked up at the
sky idly. “Get rid of evidence, I suppose,” he murmured as he looked around at the surrounding building. A work crew on one of the larger buildings was working busily on a platform, replacing a missing window. “Look there,” Remy murmured with a
nod of his chin.
Gray turned and peered up at the building. “Sniper,” he observed softly.
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“Someone found them. C’mon.”
“Where are we going now? You shouldn’t be traipsing around the city in
your condition,” Gray scolded as they made their way down the pavement.
“That’s not what you were saying last night,” Remy said with a slight smile.
Gray had the good grace to blush. “You started it,” he mumbled.
“After a week of lying on your back with no lovin’, yeah. Anyone would
start it,” Remy muttered.<
br />
“Remy….”
“I have to find them, Boss.” Remy stopped and turned to look at Gray. “I
have to find him.”
Gray sighed heavily and looked away. “And what do you plan to do once
you find them?” he asked finally.
Remy blinked slowly and looked down at his feet. What did he plan on
doing? He knew his loyalties were with the Six now. But could the rest of them say the same thing? He had a bad habit of misplacing his loyalty and getting being shot for it.
“That’s a good question,” he finally said. “Tell me about the List, Boss. How
much of it was real, and how much of it was you being full of shit?”
Gray’s head whipped back around and he looked at Remy in surprise. “I
don’t–”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Remy warned in a low, dangerous voice. “I’m not in
the mood for it. And I’m not as stupid as I look, thank God. I saw the way Thiago looked at you. He didn’t know what you were talking about.”
Gray clenched his jaw and looked away again. “Come on, Dixie, I’ll buy you
lunch. You were always easier to deal with when you were being fed.”
“No. Tell me now,” Remy demanded stubbornly. Gray licked his lips
nervously and Remy’s heart sank. “There is no list, is there? Shawn was never in
danger. You used me. You used him against me.”
“We needed you, Remy,” Gray hissed in disgust. “You were the only one–
hey! Don’t walk away from me. Listen,” Gray murmured as he grabbed Remy’s
elbow gently, ever mindful of Remy’s admittedly fragile state. “I was given one job; find someone who could move right under the Organization’s nose without being
caught. I went through hundreds of files, Remy. Hundreds. You were the only one that could have done what we did.”
“That’s supposed to justify what you’ve done? What Thiago’s done?”
“No,” Gray said grimly. “But the ends justify the means, in this case.
Besides–”
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“Fuck you, Boss.”
“No. What’s it matter anyway, huh? He forgave you, right?” Gray said
flippantly. “Or did he? He did shoot you, after all.”
Remy growled low in his throat and swung at Gray with what little strength
he had left. It ended up being more like a left-handed bitch-slap than a punch, but Remy was happy with it all the same. The contact and sound were satisfying, anyway.
Gray shook his head and looked back at Remy ruefully.
“I deserved that,” Gray admitted candidly. “I apologize. Can we go sit before
you pass out?”
“Yeah,” Remy said flatly as he realized suddenly that he was a bit light-
headed. One bitch-slap a day, then. That’s all he could handle. Fucking hell, he hated being shot. The recovery was a bitch. He allowed Gray to lead him back to the car, but he didn’t allow Gray to stop explaining as they searched for a place to eat.
“So what are these all-important ends?” he asked pointedly.
Gray sighed and glanced sideways at Remy. “Thiago didn’t explain any of
this?”
“Nope. That’s your job, Boss,” Remy said caustically.
“Where to start….”
“How ’bout you start at the point that you decided to drag my fuzzy ass into
this?”
“I told you, we needed you.”
“Why?”
“Because we needed someone who had never been under suspicion. Of
course, if I had known then about you and Shawn and how you met I never would
have–”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“What?” Gray asked in a shocked voice.
“What does how we met have to do with my never having been under
suspicion?”
“Shawn never told you?” Gray asked incredulously.
“Told me what?” Remy asked warily. He didn’t know how many more
betrayals and secrets he could handle.
“Jesus, Remy,” Gray said in exasperation. “You’re not in many loops, are
you?”
“Apparently not,” Remy shot back in agitation. “What hasn’t Shawn told
me?”
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“This is gonna take more than lunch,” Gray said grimly. “We might need
like… a buffet, or something.”
II.
THEY stayed under the radar for the month, traveling from Australia to New
Zealand to Japan to Europe, and finally to the States. Nikolaus begged them to go to Los Angeles and retrieve his motorcycle, but Thiago refused the request. They were short on time and they needed to get to Louisiana.
When they arrived in New Orleans, Shawn led them through the airport
terminal, down to the long term parking garage. Thiago and the rest of them watched Shawn warily as he walked slowly up to a classic Ford Mustang and ran his hand over the car lovingly. It was a bright, flashy yellow, with a black hood and black hockey stripes down the side. The rear window was louvered and the trunk sported a chin
spoiler. Inside the black lines along the side were the words ‘Boss 302.’
Thiago couldn’t help but whistle at it. It was a beautiful, rare car. He knew
he had to have cost upward of $500,000 US.
“That’s Remy’s car, isn’t it?” Nikolaus asked softly.
“How do you know?” Carl asked curiously.
“It’s a ’69 model,” Nikolaus said with a small smile.
“Yeah,” Shawn said sadly. “It’s his.”
Shawn dangled a set of house keys in front of Thiago and started walking
toward an older model white Toyota 4Runner without another word.
“You have a place here?” Thiago asked in surprise as he jogged to catch up.
Shawn simply shook his head and gestured for the rest of them to get in as he handed the keys to Thiago.
Shawn said very little lately. In fact, Thiago had only heard perhaps twenty
words from the other man in the past thirty days. He knew that Shawn spoke to
Brandt; mostly late at night and in hushed tones, but Brandt was the only person to whom Shawn spoke.
If Remy didn’t show, Thiago wasn’t sure what they would do with Shawn.
They’d watched him closely to keep him from killing himself, but he seemed to be
just withering away regardless of their attempts. He no longer made decisions. He no longer offered advice or opinions. He no longer touched any of them, even Brandt. He allowed himself to be touched, but he never reached out. Never tried to make contact.
He was still with them, physically, but mentally, he was lost.
Thiago had never been to New Orleans, and he tried to keep his thoughts
from roaming further as he followed Shawn’s gestures and one-word directions
through the city, toward what he assumed was the famed French Quarter. At first, the
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buildings looked no different than any other city Thiago had ever visited, and he was sorely disappointed. He had been expecting a bit more from all the hype over the
place. But then it was as if they crossed over a line, and were transported back to the eighteenth century. The scenery went from gray, grubby office buildings to festively decorated and lively two- and three-story homes and storefronts in the blink of an eye, and Thiago slowed the vehicle to avoid hitting a horse-drawn carriage in front of them. It was a beautiful area, and Thiago found it hard to keep his eyes off the iron-trellised balconies and the cobblestone streets as he drove.
Shawn gestured to one of the buildings Thiago was admiring, and Thiago
&n
bsp; pulled the 4Runner into an almost hidden garage behind the building. The brick
structure was lovely; a classic example of what Thiago pictured when he thought of New Orleans. It sat on a corner of a block of Royal Street, with a covered balcony wrapping all the way around the second level.
“Wow,” Nikolaus murmured as he unbuckled.
Shawn looked out at the house sadly for several seconds, and then got out of
the car without a word.
“Is that one house or is it apartments?” Thiago heard Carl murmur curiously
as he put the car in park and turned off the ignition.
“Has to be several homes. This must have cost him a fortune,” Nikolaus
answered under his breath.
Thiago nodded in agreement and they retrieved their bags from the back of
the 4Runner and walked out of the garage and up to the front entrance to join Shawn there.
“Is this yours, Beignet?” Carl asked gently as they walked up to stand behind
the man.
Shawn shook his head and went about unlocking the door for them. They all
gaped at their surroundings like tourists as the key jiggled in the lock.
“It’s his,” Shawn said softly as he pushed the door open and let them in.
III.
CARL and Nikolaus explored the massive house together, like two little kids in a
candy shop. Carl had been floored when Shawn had informed them that the entire
building belonged to Remy and that it was indeed a single home. How many people
did Remy work for, anyway? And what the fuck was he using to supplement his
income, exactly? This place must have cost a fortune, and it was full of an odd
mixture of expensive antique and modern furniture that made it one of the most
pleasant homes Carl had ever been in.
Carl made good money with what he did, but this was phenomenal wealth.
Ill-earned wealth, in Carl’s mind.
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“Hey, Carl?” Nikolaus finally ventured softly as they found the kitchen once
more.
“Hmm?” Carl responded as he looked out the back windows into the private
courtyard.
“You think Shawn’ll be okay? I mean… if Remy… I mean… I don’t think