He watched her as she leaned against the crumbling brick building. She was motionless in the near-dark, her eyes blazing with electric light that she tried to hide beneath her lashes. She stood just beyond the reach of the light that illuminated the old waterfront warehouse. Lazy tendrils of fog drifted in from the muddy river. Swiftly, silently, she lifted a silver flask from her pocket and took a drink, licking the excess from one fingertip before replacing it. She waited again.

She was so naïve. She seemed to think that just by batting her eyelashes at him, by seducing him with her lithe body, he would grin and overlook the sins in her past. She was wrong. She didn't know about the beast that lived inside him, the thing that only knew possessiveness, pride, hunger, anger. Rage. And lust. Oh, yeah. There was that, too. He appraised her like he would any other animal, seeing muscle and stamina instead of wild red hair and smooth white thighs. He liked what he saw. He wanted to kill the other one, the *man* around the other corner of the building. He had run his fingers through the long red hair, he had lain between those slim thighs, and he ought to die for it, for touching the woman he loved. His woman. His.

#You begin to annoy me, HUSBAND.#

The frigid voice was unnecessarily loud, but it served his purpose. It snapped him out of the feral state that resulted from waiting too long for prey. #This is startin' ta piss me off,# he answered back, without apologizing for the animalistic rambling that had only been half-pretense. #We been waitin' three hours, and the Belladonna bitch hasn't shown up yet. We been here for two weeks, and this is the last lead. This better pay off, Callie.#

#Fuck off, Wolverine,# She was probably the only person on the face of the earth who had the balls to say that to him. #How do you think *I* feel?! It's *my* son we're searching for. If you can't handle a simple little stakeout, then you can damn well get the hell back to Salem Center.# The number of expletives, as well as the tired tone of her mental voice, betrayed her frazzled, emotional state.

Even so, he felt the animal in him rising to the challenge she presented. #Don't even fucking try it, Logan. I'm not in the mood to play.#

#I never play, darlin'.#

#What I've seen so far certainly couldn't be called fighting,# she snarled back. #The kid in my belly could kick your ass.#

He pulled back. She was baiting him, and he was responding in a major way. He had come close to slipping over the edge of sanity-until she had mentioned the kid. His kid.

Celeste stiffened and flicked a glance to the shadows where Logan stood. Footsteps sounded along the sidewalk. Gambit whistled to indicate he'd heard, the sound blending into the chirps of crickets that hummed in the cool air. Adrenaline poured through Celeste. Her hunch had paid off. Belle had come back to the warehouse. Her skin tightened in anticipation. #Easy now, ladies. Don't nobody do anything stupid.#

#Yessir,# Logan shot back.

Belle and a couple of her henchmen breezed past Celeste, closely enough to step on her feet. Celeste grinned and followed, in full view, right behind the men. They entered the warehouse together, but Celeste jumped into the shadows as the second man in turned to close the door. She waited. The trio walked to the center of the nearly empty warehouse and Belle sat down at the table, already set up for such a purpose. The two men presented her with manilla envelopes, discussing the contents at length. Obviously, there was a bit of red tape involved with being a Guild leader. Gambit and Wolverine almost walked in on the conversation before Celeste caught Remy's collar in a choke hold and dragged him and Wolverine into the darkness. Holes in the roof illuminated the building with patches of silver moonlight, giving the entire scenario an ethereal feeling. Belle snapped something harsh at the two men and sent the fleeing with a furious wave of her hands. She must be feeling pretty sure of herself, Celeste mused, to call off her bodyguards.

The second the door was closed behind them, she attacked. She came up behind Belle and spun her chair around, bracketing the other woman's jaw with a thumb and forefinger. "I know you're busy with paperwork, Belladonna, so I'll make this short. I want my son, and if you have him, I suggest you give him up. I am not in a charitable mood," she cautioned, flexing her hand on the delicate jawbone, "I've heard that dislocating the jaw this way is very easy. Pity. I'd be happy to reset it for you, however, if you had an accident."

"Are you finished?" Belle gasped out.

Her hand squeezed again. "Maybe. Where is he, Belle?"

"I didn't even know you had a son, Veau. I haven't seen him."

"You're lying. If you've been paying attention to new Thieves at all, you would have pegged my son. He looks just like his father." Celeste grinned. "And, oh, wasn't the father good company? Mmm, chere, the stories I could tell you!" She winked, "But they'd make you blush."

Gambit carefully avoided looking at Wolverine.

Belle jerked against her hand, and snapped, "I don' have your son, Veau! Now get de hell out of here! You know, if dese boys weren't protectin' you, I'd kill you fo' doin' dis. I still might," she added venomously.

Celeste snorted, tightening her grip. Belle wasn't lying. Her mind was a total blank in this department. She let go, and Belle fell forward in the chair, gasping for breath. She raised hate-filled eyes to the other woman. Celeste slapped her for her insolence. It was a simple thing, not hard enough to knock any teeth out, just enough to give her brain a good rattle. Belle looked up at her in bleary surprise and passed out. "Well, that's it," Celeste said, "the last good lead. The Guilds don't know a damn thing. We've been all through my contacts in the business district, and they know less than nothin' about it. That covers the criminals and the upper class. What else is left? What am I missing?" She was missing something. Something obvious. She ran shaky hands through her hair and sighed.

"I don' know, chere, but whatever it is, we'll find it." Gambit moved to put a comforting arm around Celeste, but thought better of it. Logan was glaring at him. As far as Logan was concerned, he had put his hands on Celeste once too often already. She linked her arms through theirs and grimly led the way back to her house in the Garden District. What was she missing?

She was still searching for the answer to that question as Gambit dragged both her and Logan out of bed and across the city to the Quarter, where they ate breakfast at "de best café in de parish," according to Gambit.

Logan sipped strong coffee and retreated behind sunglasses, listening to Remy and Celeste as they talked. Since they'd arrived in New Orleans, Callie had done her best to bring Remy up to date on the subject of Jean-Luc Henri LaBelle. He'd forgiven her, of course, wondering mildly if it had been a conscious decision or not. Celeste wouldn't manipulate his mind like that, would she? Looking at her now, Logan would be incensed at Gambit's accusation. She was so sweet, so genteel. Of course she wouldn't do something so low. But Logan had seen her do things the past few weeks that he'd never thought Celeste capable of. He was guilty of stereotyping her. He'd watched her sword-fight and drink and smoke, along with a little beheading and bloodletting, and still the only image that had stuck with him was one of Celeste, gowned and groomed in the kind of getup a queen would wear. Her wedding gown being one, and the other was the dress she had appeared in before going into a coma that had almost cost her her life. In the past three weeks, he'd seen her waltzing around in outfits you could swallow without a glass of water, getting into bar fights and poker games; using charm, blackmail, and outright lies to get the information she wanted. She was a master of manipulation, that was the long and short of it. She'd bewitched them all into thinking she was an angel, like Satan in Eden, appearing as a snake--

"What did you say?" Celeste turned her head. He was *really* beginning to annoy her with all his useless powdering. For someone who supposedly understood her little problem with LeBeau, he sure wasn't shutting up about it. Havin' a mental link with the one you love is a real bitch, I guess. "Jesus, Logan, you're hurtin' my feelings. What did you say?"

"I was just thinking that this is hard to figure out, y'know, I--"

"Not that. I meant that stuff about bewitchment and a snake."

"I just wondered if maybe you'd bewitched us all, like that snake in Eden, y'know?"

"The snake. . .That's it! Oh, Logan, you just figured out the missing link! Oh, I could kiss you!" And she did, pulled his head down to hers for a deep kiss before leaping to her feet. "I've figured it out, an' you're going to help," she jabbed a finger at Remy and took off down the street without checking to see if he was following. The men shook their heads like she'd gone mad, which she probably had, and hurried after.

They tracked her into a dark, hole-in-the-wall shop off St. Louis. The faded sign over the door read, "High Priestess Occult". Inside, Celeste was already buying something, a mask covered with feathers Her smile blinded the cashier so that he forgot to ask for her money, but she gave it anyway. "Is Simone in?" She asked huskily.

The vendor eyed her doubtfully. If this slip of a girl was asking for Simone, she had either stumbled across information she shouldn't have, or she really was into the hard-core stuff. He flicked a glance at the gentlemen behind her. One looked like he could charm the stars from the sky, while the other looked as though he rolled off the wrong side of the swamp this morning and been hit by a truck. When he looked back at the woman though, what had happened was extraordinary. Her face had changed, becoming angular and sharp. Her breasts heaved against the red velvet bodice and when she opened her mouth to smile at him, fangs protruded. When he blinked rapidly and tried again, she was all sweetness and light, wearing an expectant smile on her face. But he had lived in the Quarter too long to dismiss it as a trick of the light. "Who are you?" he rasped out.

"I?" She gestured to herself. "I am the Leveau. I control the Fates themselves, child. I suggest you answer my question."

"Yeh, yeh." He nodded furiously. "Simone, she be wantin' t'see you. If you are who you say--" he cut himself off at her narrowing gaze, "You are! You are who you say you are!"

"Is she still at the old place on Bourbon?"

"Yeh."

"Good," the woman turned and sashayed out the door, carolling, "You have a nice day now, hear?"

Logan walked alongside her, grumbling, his hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets. "Y'know, I trust you as much as the next guy, but would you mind tellin' me what the hell we're doing?"

"You comparing me to a snake-thanks, by the way-gave me an idea. I'd been missing the obvious."

"Well, fill us in, jus' fo' de hell of it, huh, pichouette?"

"My last name, Gambit. Leveau. Here I've been searching for some ransomer or old business rival when it didn't even occur to me that somebody could've found out the truth about Marie Leveau hanging on the family tree."

"What's that got to do with a snake?"

"In voodoo, one of the chief deities is Damballa Oueddo, the Serpent-God. Now, voodoo also teaches the importance of human sacrifice. If they could find someone whose sacrifice symbolizes something, then all the better."

"But dat means we may already be too late. Jean-Luc's been missing fo' a month already."

"Nope. Wrong again, Remy. Last time I checked, the conclaves were only held about once a month, when the moon was right or the portents were favorable. We'll be getting in under the gun here, boys. I just have to figure out when and where."

"I still don't get it," Logan protested, ignoring Callie's eye rolling. "If somebody figured out that he's related to Marie, and she's some all important 'Voodoo Queen', then why would they sacrifice him?"

"Because, here, Marie Leveau's already dead. The tomb in St. Louis Cemetery #1 has her name on it, says she died June 16, 1881. Marie decided she couldn't go on living here forever without raising questions, so she 'died' and promised Roma she wouldn't come back an confuse things. They think that by sacrificing her descendant and lifting him up to where she is, she'll be so grateful that she'll reward them."

"So we gotta break inta this conclave an' make sure they don't do somethin' stupid like cut his heart out, right?"

Celeste grinned sarcastically. "Boy, you catch on quick. No wonder I married you."

"Shut up and get movin', if you're gonna be bitchy about it."

She winked at Gambit before answering, "Yes, dear."