Ignoring her compliment, he pulled the black backpack off his shoulder and flipped his sunglasses up to show eerie, swirling silver eyes that seemed to flash in the darkness. "How long has Selena been handcuffed to the fence?"
"About half an hour. I figured I'd hang out with her and keep her from becoming a Daimon-kabob."
"I wish," Selena muttered. She raised her voice and slung her arms wide. "Here I am, vampires, come and end my misery!"
Tabitha and Ash exchanged a half-amused, half-irritated look at her dramatics.
Ash moved to sit down beside Selena. "Hi, Lanie," he said quietly as he kept the backpack at his feet.
"Go away, Ash. I'm not leaving here until they repeal their law. I belong in this Square. I was raised here."
Ash nodded in understanding. "Where's Bill?"
"He's a traitor!" Selena snarled.
Tabitha answered the question. "He's probably at the courthouse holding ice to a private area after Selena racked him and accused him of being 'the man who is holding her down.'"
Ash's face softened as if the thought amused him.
"He deserved it," Selena said defensively. "He told me that the law is the law and that I had to obey it. Screw that. I'm not going anywhere until they change it."
"Guess I'll be here for awhile," Tabitha said wistfully.
"You can make them repeal the law," Selena said, turning toward Ash. "Can't you?"
Ash leaned back against the fence without commenting.
"Don't get too close to her, Ash," Tabitha warned. "She's been known to bite."
"That makes two of us," he said with a hint of humor in his voice as his fangs flashed. "But I somehow think my bite might hurt a little more."
"You're not funny," Selena said sullenly.
Ash draped an arm over Selena's shoulder. "C'mon, Lane. You know it's not going to change anything for you to stay here. Sooner or later a cop will come by-"
"And I'll assault him."
Ash tightened his hold on her. "You can't assault them for doing their job."
"Yes, I can!"
Still he managed to remain calm while dealing with the Queen of Hysteria. "Is that really what you want to do?"
"No. I want my stand back," Selena said, her voice breaking from her grief and pain.
Tabitha's own chest was tight in sympathetic agony for her.
"I wasn't hurting anyone by having a table here. This is my space. I've had my stand right here in this spot since 1986! It's so not fair for them to make me leave because those stupid artists are jealous. Who wants one of their crappy paintings of the Quarter, anyway? They're stupid. What's New Orleans without her psychics? Just another boring, run-down tourist town, that's what!"
Ash held her sympathetically. "Times change, Selena. Believe me, I know, and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it except to let it go. No matter how much you want to stop time, it has to go forward and move on to something else."
Tabitha heard the sadness in his voice as he spoke comfortingly to her sister. Ash had been alive for more than eleven thousand years. He remembered New Orleans back in the days when it had barely qualified as a town. For that matter, he probably remembered New Orleans before any kind of civilization had claimed it.
If anyone knew about change, it was Acheron Parthenopaeus.
Ash wiped the tears from Selena's face and angled her chin so that she was staring at the building across the street from them. "You know, that building is up for sale. 'Madame Selene's Tarot Reading and Mystical Boutique.' Can you imagine it?"
Selena snorted at that. "Yeah, right. Like I can afford it. Have you any idea what the real estate here goes for?"