Chapter 7 #2
“The murders and the curse both obscure their origins,” Bastien said. “That level of coordination requires someone who understands both magical and vampire traditions deeply. Someone with resources. Patience.”
“Someone who has been planning this for a long time,” Maman agreed. “The witch is a piece of a larger design. Not the picture itself.”
Bastien rose from his chair. “The witch might lead me to the architect. Or they might be a dead end deliberately placed to consume my attention while the real work continues elsewhere.”
“Both are possible. But even a dead end tells you where not to look.” Maman rose with him, moving to stand at the threshold of the back room.
“Be careful, cher. The witch may not know the full plan—may be a victim themselves, trapped in a design they did not consent to. If you approach with violence, you may destroy someone who could have been an ally.”
“And if the witch is aligned? If they believe in what they’re doing?”
“Then they have chosen their side. And you must respond accordingly.”
Bastien moved toward the door. Maman’s voice stopped him at the threshold.
“One more thing.” Her tone had changed—quieter, carrying weight she had been holding back.
“What you carry is drawing things from beyond the city, cher. I felt it shift this morning. Whatever your arm is putting out, it reaches further than I initially understood. Things are moving toward New Orleans that were not here last week.”
A pause. “Be watchful tonight. Not just of watchers.”
He held her gaze. “What kind of things?”
“Old things. Things that feed on exposed celestial energy.” Her silver braids shone in the candlelight. “Things that have not had reason to come to this city in decades.”
He nodded once and stepped into the evening.
Eulalie Marchand occupied a shotgun house on Frenchmen Street, three blocks from the music venues where tourists gathered, far enough to avoid the noise but close enough to watch the foot traffic.
Her reputation preceded her in the way that mattered among practitioners: she knew things, heard things, connected patterns that others missed.
The Thirteen Coven had invited her to join three times over the decades.
She had declined three times with language that Bastien suspected had become legendary in certain circles.
The house showed no lights when he approached, but that meant nothing.
Eulalie worked according to schedules that had nothing to do with solar position.
Her wards pressed against his awareness as he reached the property line—old workings, maintained with the dedication of someone who understood that security required constant attention.
He stopped at the threshold and waited.
A minute passed. Two. The street behind him continued its evening routine.
A group of musicians walked past, instrument cases slung over shoulders, conversation animated with the energy of people heading toward their first set.
A couple argued in French on the opposite sidewalk, their disagreement sharp but affectionate.
The door opened.
Eulalie Marchand stood in the frame, silhouette backlit by candles burning deep in the house.
She was smaller than he remembered, but the presence she carried had nothing to do with physical dimensions.
White hair cropped close to her skull. Skin the color of coffee with too much cream, lined by decades that had not been gentle.
Eyes that assessed him with the quick calculation of survival instinct.
“Durand.” Her voice carried the Ninth Ward accent of her childhood, maintained through years of practice that had taken her far from those streets. “Maman called ahead.”
“She mentioned you might be willing to speak with me.”
“Willing is a strong word.” But she stepped aside, gesturing into the house with a hand that bore rings on every finger—silver and iron and something older than either. “Come in before someone sees you standing on my porch. Your beacon is giving me a headache.”
The interior contradicted its modest exterior.
Shotgun architecture stretched back in the traditional style—room opening into room, no hallways—but the contents defied the simple floor plan.
Books covered every surface, stacked in configurations that suggested organization according to principles Bastien could not determine.
Dried herbs hung from ceiling hooks. The smell was complex: sage and copper and something floral beneath, something that might have been gardenia or might have been decay.
Eulalie led him to a sitting room in the middle of the house, where two chairs faced each other across a low table covered in tarot cards spread in a pattern that matched no reading Bastien recognized.
“Sit,” she said. “Don’t touch the cards.”
He sat. She settled across from him, her movements carrying the careful economy of joints that had started protesting years ago. Candles cast shifting light throughout the house, and shadows moved in ways that suggested observation rather than accident.
“You’re looking for a witch.” It was not a question.
“I’m looking for the witch who placed this curse.”
Her eyes dropped to his left forearm. “I felt that when you came within three blocks. The whole street probably felt it, the ones with any sensitivity at all. You’re walking around broadcasting, and you want to know who lit the fire.”
“Can you tell me anything about the casting?”
“I can tell you it’s good work. Clean. The kind of work that takes years to learn, more years to perfect.
” She leaned back in her chair, rings catching candlelight.
“I can tell you it’s not coven standard.
Isolde’s people leave marks, little signatures woven into the structure.
Professional courtesy, they call it. This has none of that. ”
“An independent, then.”
“Or someone who learned coven technique and then chose to abandon coven identification.” Eulalie’s eyes narrowed. “There’s a difference between not being trained and being trained and hiding it. This feels like the second.”
“Who in the city has that kind of skill working outside the Thirteen?”
She laughed—a short, sharp sound without humor.
“You want a list? I can give you names. A dozen practitioners with the knowledge to attempt something like this, maybe half that with the skill to actually pull it off. But names don’t mean anything without context.
Knowing who could do a thing is not the same as knowing who did do a thing. ”
“Give me the names anyway.”
Eulalie studied him. The cards on the table between them seemed to shift in the candlelight, though neither of them touched them. From the back of the house came a sound—a scratching, or perhaps a whisper.
“Why should I help you, Durand? You walk in here carrying a curse that’s drawing attention from every faction in the city.
The vampires are circling. The pack is watching.
The Thirteen are asking questions about you that they’ve never asked before.
Helping you puts me on people’s radar, and I’ve spent fifty years staying off radars. ”
“Because someone is killing vampires in patterns that point to old conflicts. Because the murders and the curse are connected—parallel tools in a design I don’t yet understand.
Because if that design succeeds, whatever stability this city has maintained will shatter.
” Bastien held her gaze. “And because Maman asked you to speak with me, and you don’t ignore Maman’s requests without good reason. ”
Eulalie’s posture relaxed by a degree. “Fine. You want names, I’ll give you names. But I’m also going to give you information that the names won’t tell you.”
She rose and moved to a shelf at the back of the room, her fingers finding a specific jar without needing to look. The contents were dark, granular—something between sand and ash.
“Two weeks ago, someone bought consecrated grave dirt from a supplier in Tremé. Not a large amount—enough for personal protection, or for focused curse work. The buyer paid in cash and didn’t give a name.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“No. But the timing is interesting. The purchase happened three days before your first murder.” Eulalie set the jar on the table, its contents shifting with slow intention.
“And the supplier mentioned that the buyer asked about sourcing iron from a threshold that hadn’t been crossed in fifty years.
Very specific request. Very unusual component. ”
Threshold iron. The kind of material Maman had described as necessary for the beacon curse. Someone had collected components in the days before the killing pattern began.
“Did the supplier describe the buyer?”
“Woman. Middle-aged. Quiet. Paid attention to everything and volunteered nothing.” Eulalie returned to her chair. “Not one of the regulars. Not anyone the supplier recognized from the usual circles. Someone new, or someone who had stayed invisible until she needed to stop being invisible.”
“That’s helpful.”
“That’s the beginning.” Eulalie’s fingers drummed against her armrest, rings clicking in irregular rhythm.
“I’ve been hearing things, Durand. Whispers from practitioners who don’t usually whisper.
Someone moved through the city’s magical community in the months before your bodies started appearing.
Asking questions about old workings. About historical practitioners.
About techniques that haven’t been used in generations. ”
“What kind of questions?”
“Questions about beacon curses. About rituals that require vampire blood. About the families that held power before the tribunal in 1847.” Her eyes met his. “Someone was researching. Building knowledge. Preparing for something that required understanding the city’s oldest magical conflicts.”