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)
She answered on the second ring. “Bastien.” No sleep-rough confusion—she’d been awake.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t wake me. I was reading.” A pause that held no pressure. “Where are you?”
“Algiers. Work.”
“Two bodies?” Her voice was careful, the precision of someone choosing what to ask rather than what she wanted to ask.
He went still. “What makes you say two?”
“You sound the way you do when you don’t want to confess how bad something really is—like you’ve just realized something terrible.” She was quiet a moment. “Also, you called me at two in the morning from Algiers, and it’s been over a full day since I heard from you. So… Two?”
“Two,” he said.
“Same method?”
“Yes.”
He heard her move—the sound of papers, something being set aside. “Any connection between the victims?”
“Distant. Both bloodlines tracing to the territorial period.” He found himself watching the bridge lights reflect off the river, the water carrying their shimmer downstream toward the Gulf.
A rustling sound—she was at her desk, he realized, not in bed at all. He should have anticipated this. “Hmm. If you can text me the bloodline information I can look for documentation or history at the Archive.”
Bastien sat with that for a moment. The bridge stretched before him, empty, the city glittering on the other side.
“You already have an idea who might be next,” she said.
“I have a suspicion there’s a list.”
“And you have two victims.”
“Yes.”
The silence between them was not uncomfortable. It had the quality of two minds moving parallel—hers through the documentary record, his through the geography of what he’d witnessed. He found he did not want to end it.
“Be safe,” she said finally. “Whatever this is, it’s likely been planned for a long time considering your victims. People who plan things that long don’t leave room for interference.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“You say that every time.”
“I mean it every time.”
“Mmm.” He could hear her skepticism clearly, even through the phone. “Call me when you’re back across the river. I don’t care what time.”
After she hung up, he sat in the dark thinking for another five minutes. Then he started the car and drove back toward the Quarter.
The killer knew vampire law. The killer knew vampire history. The killer possessed knowledge that should have died in 1891 and records that should have burned a century before that. He’d let Delphine know this later when he had a bit more information himself. If he could keep her separated from any potential danger, it would always be his first choice. While her researching skills were above all, he didn’t want to give her the bloodline names or any information unless it became critical.
Bastien’s job was to translate the message the killer was sending before its author finished writing it.
The Mississippi rolled dark and patient beneath the bridge as he crossed back to the east bank. The city waited on the other side, its lights promising safety it could not guarantee, its streets holding secrets older than any of the living remembered.
THREE
Bastien woke to the sensation of heat where heat should not have been.
The gray light of early morning filled the room as he lay still, taking stock of the feeling before opening his eyes. His left side, just below his elbow—a warmth pulsed with slow regularity, unconnected to his heartbeat, unconnected to anything he could name. Not pain. Not quite. Something closer to pressure, as though a hand pressed against his skin from the inside, testing the boundary between inside and out.
The ceiling of his Dauphine Street apartment came into focus. Water stains mapped territories across the plaster, familiar geography memorized over decades. Outside, the Quarter stirred toward consciousness with the clatter of a delivery truck on Bourbon, the distant complaint of a saxophone player running scales, the wet-green smell of humidity that had never broken overnight.
Sitting up, he pulled his shirt over his head.
Something sat on the inside of his left forearm, midway between wrist and elbow. Faint. Almost nothing. The skin there had darkened to a color between bruise and birthmark, and within that darkness, lines had begun to form. Not sigils he recognized. Not any symbol from the crime scenes. Just lines, curving and intersecting, as though something beneath the surface was trying to write itself into existence.
Two fingers pressed against it. The warmth intensified — not painful, but present in a way that made his jaw clench. When he removed his hand, the sensation lingered.
Residual magic. The obvious answer. Hours spent at two murder sites, standing in spaces saturated with ritual energy, examining sigils carved by hands that knew what they were doing. Some contamination was inevitable. The question was only whether it would fade on its own or require intervention.
Dressed and descended to his office, where the tools of magical hygiene waited in their usual places. The salt came from a deposit in the Camargue, blessed by a Romani woman whose family had worked purification for six generations. Maman had dried the sage in her garden, cutting it during a waning moon. The iron bowl predated the city itself, brought over from France in a ship that no longer existed in any manifest.