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front of us, again without asking, full of amber, frothy beer. I drank fast to cool my mouth and tried the onion rings. They too were fried, with beer-batter crust, and they crunched like God Himself had made them in His own kitchen. Lastly I tried the unknown fried balls and bit through the crust into highly spiced, ground hog meat and rice.
    â€œBoudin, dat is, right dere,” the cook said. “Good, yes?”
    â€œI’m in love,” I said to the cook as I chewed. “If you aren’t married, please consider this a proposal.”
    He smiled, his face creasing into deep, dark chasms, exposing the biggest white teeth I’d ever seen in a human. “Your gal, I like her, I do, Ricky-bo,” he said, in what I assumed was a Cajun accent. He glanced at me, a twinkle in his eyes. “But you bes’ tell her ’bout my Marlene. I don’ like it when a new customer end up bleedin’ on my clean, purty floor.”
    Rick, a half grin on his face, was sitting with both elbows on the bar, a hush puppy in one hand and his beer mug in the other. He slanted his eyes at me. “Marlene is his wife. Two hundred fifty pounds of jealous, dangerous woman.”
    â€œAnd beautiful,” the man said. “Don’ forget beautiful, you.”
    â€œSlap-dead gorgeous,” Rick agreed. “Like molten lava on the dance floor. Makes men moan just watching her. But she carries a fourteen-inch knife strapped to her thigh. In a garter.”
    â€œJealous,” the cook said again, sliding a steel mesh basket into a vat of hot fat, his chef’s hat canted to one side. “Deadly, she be, yeah.”
    â€œKilled a woman in here last year,” Rick said. He pointed at the floor three feet away. “Woman tried to flirt with him. Died right there.”
    Finally realizing I was being teased, I tossed another onion ring into my mouth and said as I crunched, “Buried her out back, I’m guessing? Under a full moon? Chants and drums?”
    â€œUnder a tree,” the man said, laughing. “Marlene done fount her a nice stone from de funeral home. It say, ‘Here lay fool woman done been messin’ wid my man.’ ” He dried off a hand and held it over the bar. “Antoine.”
    â€œJane,” I said, wiping grease off my fingers.
    â€œAntoine never forgets a face or a customer,” Rick said. “And he knows everything there is to know about this town.”
    â€œHandy,” I said. I took his hand. It was big, long fingered, and smooth, and when I gripped it, the world seemed to slow down. Like a big bike after a long ride, energies pumping hotly, ready to roll, but puttering down to nearly nothing. Silence when the motor stops, silence almost as loud as the engine, thrumming and cavernous. Antoine stared at me. I stared at him.
    His palm tingled with power, prickly and keen, like static electricity running just beneath his skin. Witchy power, like Molly’s, yet different in a way I could immediately discern. His pupils widened, his lips parted. Something passed between us. A moment of . . . something. Crap. What is this? I seldom felt Beast in my thoughts unless I was in danger, but she was suddenly alert, hunkered, belly down, claws pricking my soul with warning.
    Antoine’s grip tightened. “Very please’ to meet you, I am, Miss Jane,” he said formally.
    The prickly power traveled up my arm, questing. Beast coughed, the sound a warning deep in my mind. Antoine tilted his head in surprise, as if he’d heard her. “Likewise, Mr. Antoine,” I lied, my lips tingly, almost painful, as I resisted the questing power. It slid around my puny attempt to block it. Beast reached out a paw and placed it on the energy that was rising within me. Pressed down on the current. And stopped the sensation.
    â€œLikewise,” I repeated. He released my hand, breaking the . . . whatever it was. The world crashed in, loud,