Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
“Theory requires evidence. Evidence requires time. Time requires freedom to investigate without constant interruption.”
“Your interruptions are not our concern.”
“They should be.” Bastien closed the folder and met her eyes. “Every approach, every request for information, every demand for assurance—all of it pulls attention from the work. You want results? Stop treating me as a political asset to be managed and let me do what you’re paying me to do.”
Silence held the room. Then Marcelline spoke.
“The council has determined that your investigation requires additional resources.” Her tone carried finality. “Valentin will accompany you to the latest scene. House representatives will be assigned to assist with whatever you require.”
“Assist, or observe?”
“Both.”
The trap closed tighter. House representatives following his investigation would mean constant surveillance, constant reporting, every discovery filtered through vampire politics before he could act on it. His movements would be tracked not by distant watchers but by escorts whose presence would announce his arrival to anyone paying attention.
The curse had made him visible. The council intended to make him inescapable.
“I work alone.”
“You work as we direct, Bastien. Your neutrality has always depended on our willingness to respect it.” Marcelline’s expression hardened. “Recent events have made us question whether that respect is being earned.”
The accusation landed without evidence. She did not believe he was involved in the murders—the statement would have been direct if she did. This was pressure, political leverage applied to an investigation that had failed to produce the results the houses demanded.
Bastien considered his options. Refusal would cost him access to resources the investigation needed. Acceptance would cost him the freedom to move without observation. Either choice served the purposes of whoever had designed this situation.
You are the board, Maman had said. And boards can be flipped.
“I’ll take your representatives to the scene,” he said. “They can observe. They can report. But they do not interfere with my methods, they do not approach witnesses before I do, and they do not share what we find until I authorize it.”
“Those terms are not—”
“Those terms are final. Accept them or find another investigator.”
Marcelline studied him. The coldness of her attention pressed against his skin, and the mark responded with a pulse that bordered on pain. Centuries of power, held in check by calculation rather than mercy.
“Accepted,” she said. “Valentin will coordinate. Do not make us regret this arrangement.”
Bastien turned toward the exit. Behind him, the council rose from their seats, conversations beginning in tones too low for human ears to catch. The folder remained in his hands—Adelaide Renier’s death, documented in photographs that showed nothing he did not already know.
Five victims. Five bodies left intact. Five words in a sentence whose meaning grew clearer with each addition.
Somewhere in the city, someone had watched him walk into Preservation Hall, noted the time, calculated the window, and moved while he negotiated.
The Seventh Ward lay northeast of the Quarter, past the Tremé, in a neighborhood where Creole cottages mixed with shotgun doubles and the streets carried names that honored French and Spanish and American histories in equal measure. Adelaide Renier’s workshop occupied a building on St. Bernard Avenue, its storefront windows painted over with the words RADIO REPAIR in faded letters that suggested decades of continuous operation.
Bastien arrived at four-fifteen, the afternoon shadows lengthening across the pavement. Valentin walked two steps behind, his presence both escort and surveillance. The house representatives had been left at Preservation Hall—Bastien had insisted on that much, and Marcelline had conceded rather than extend their negotiation.
Crime scene tape stretched across the workshop’s entrance. Human police had come and gone, their confusion managed by the Veil’s influence, their reports already being altered to remove details that could not be explained.
“How long have you known?” Bastien asked without turning around.
Valentin’s footsteps did not falter. “Known what?”
“That I’m carrying something. The council’s concern about my visibility isn’t political. They’ve sensed what lives in my flesh.”
A pause. Four heartbeats of silence that confirmed the suspicion before Valentin spoke.
“Marcelline noticed it the moment you entered Preservation Hall. The others sensed it shortly after.” His voice carried neither accusation nor sympathy. “You’ve been marked. By someone with power enough to place a beacon inside a fallen angel without his knowledge.”
“Does the council know what it is?”
“We know it’s broadcasting your location to anyone with perception trained to see. We know it’s grown stronger since the murders began. Beyond that, speculation would be premature.”
Bastien reached the crime scene tape and ducked beneath it. The workshop’s interior smelled of solder and old electronics and, beneath those ordinary scents, the copper tang of blood. Adelaide Renier’s body had already been removed—processed through whatever channels the vampire court maintained for disposing of their dead with appropriate discretion—but the evidence of her death remained.
Blood channels carved into the concrete floor. Sigils marked on the workbench where her arms had rested. The Marchande-Levesque symbol, dark against gray cement, positioned where her heart had been.