Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
GENEVIèVE LAURANT
The spirits alert me before the bell. They always do.
Il arrive. He comes.
I hesitate, anticipation sliding down my spine. Is this the man the spirits have been forewarning the arrival of?
I rise from my reading chair, setting my book aside. Candlelight glows in glass hurricanes as I move through my small parlor. Tonight, the Veil sings in a different key. Not the familiar lullaby I've heard since childhood, but a dirge. A calling-home song.
At my gate, a man collapses.
"Oh, mon Dieu.” I rush through the courtyard toward him, unlocking the gate. Blood has never frightened me. I've delivered too many babies, stitched too many wounds to fear the sight. But this blood pools strangely, as if something dark swims in it.
I touch his shoulder. "Monsieur?" Or maybe I should refer to him as mister? Although the Americans are rarely in Vieux Carre, especially at night.
The air around him is colder than expected, even for mid-December in New Orleans. His skin feels thin beneath my fingers, as if it’s there but fading.
I roll him onto his back, and my breath stills.
He is beautiful even in ruin. Sharp French aristocratic features, hair black as sin itself.
But it's the mark that makes me gasp. An elaborate sigil carved into the flesh over his heart, visible through the tatters of his shirt.
Five interlocking circles, one now fractured.
An Oathmark. The sigil has haunted my dreams for some time.
He crosses the threshold, a voice whispers from the empty corner of my courtyard.
"Hush," I tell the spirits, though it never helps. "Not now."
I press my fingers to his throat. No pulse, yet he moans a low, broken sound that isn’t of this world. I've heard such sounds before, from those hovering on the edge of the next world.
"Come inside." I loop his arm around my shoulders.
He is impossibly light for his size, as if parts of him have already departed.
I guide him inside, through the narrow passage to my workroom.
I help him lie on the table where I treat my patients, quickly gathering herbs and tinctures by candlelight.
Calendula to help stop bleeding. Chamomile to calm and soothe the pain.
Comfrey to promote healing. My grandmother's gris-gris bag of crossroad dirt.
When I cut away his shirt, the wound is a vicious slash between his ribs, seeping not just blood but darkness.
I place my hands over the wound and begin to sing the old healing songs. Heat builds on my palms, light spilling through my fingers and into his flesh.
His eyes fly open, gray but glowing silver. His hand catches my wrist with sudden, desperate strength.
“You," he croaks, with effort. "You sing it too."
I stare down at him, understanding growing clearer. This man is neither living nor dead. He walks the space between. And somehow, he knows what I am.