Page 26 of Cry of Blood and Joy (French Quarter Vampire Enforcer #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Joy

Dimitri suddenly pulled over to what could barely be called the side of the road—it wasn’t really a parking place, just a little clearing where the cypress trees parted like reluctant sentries.

The car engine’s steady hum died, leaving us in a silence so complete it felt like the world had stopped breathing.

My heart threatened to burst. I had to take a steadying breath before I could speak. “Where are we?”

“There’s a path that will lead us to where Angelo has your brother.” He motioned with his hand.

The words spiked my heartbeat even more. Steve. My muscles knotted into such a tangled rope I thought they would never get untangled. Images flashed through my mind—Steve’s boyish grin, the way he used to ruffle my hair when we were kids, his stupid jokes that always made me laugh despite myself.

I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed with every desperate fiber of my being that he was still in one piece, that Angelo’s legendary cruelty hadn’t already torn my older brother apart like tissue paper.

The thought of Steve broken and bleeding, begging for mercy that never came, nearly shattered what little composure I had left.

Everything here suggested this was the last stop, and as I stared into the shadowy mouth of the path that would lead me to whatever fresh hell awaited, I wondered if I would ever see Enzo’s handsome face again.

This godforsaken swamp might claim both Steve and me before the day was through.

The trail seemed to breathe with malevolent life, Spanish moss swaying like ghostly fingers beckoning us deeper into the bayou’s hungry embrace.

Dimitri trampled through the swamp with supernatural grace, his feet finding solid ground where I saw only treacherous mud and twisted roots.

I stumbled behind him like a condemned prisoner walking to the gallows, each step a conscious choice between cowardice and love.

I could have turned and run—could have crashed through the undergrowth back toward the road, back toward some desperate chance at freedom.

But that would mean signing my brother’s death sentence in my own blood, abandoning Steve to whatever nightmare Angelo’s centuries of cruelty could devise.

So I pressed forward, even as thorny branches reached out like grasping claws to rake across my exposed skin, leaving angry red welts that burned and bled.

Clouds of mosquitoes and gnats swarmed around my face in a maddening symphony of buzzing torment, drawn to my fear-soaked sweat like vultures to carrion.

The Louisiana heat pressed down on us like the weight of divine judgment, thick and suffocating, turning every breath into a battle and my clothes into a second skin of misery.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of torture, we emerged into a small clearing where sunlight fell in harsh, accusing shafts through the canopy above. And there, rising from the swampy ground like a monument to fallen grace, stood a church that made me break out in goosebumps.

The building was a grotesque mockery of its former sanctity—stained glass windows that might once have depicted beautiful roses in brilliant reds and pinks now lay shattered, their colorful fragments scattered across the marshy ground like dried blood and broken promises.

Rough planks of weathered wood had been crudely nailed behind the broken panes, creating blind, accusatory eyes that stared out at the corruption surrounding them.

The once-pristine walls were now more rust than white, streaked with mold and decay that painted abstract murals of despair across what had once been sacred architecture.

I knew what church this was, could feel its dark history pressing against my chest like an invisible force trying to crush the life from my lungs.

This cursed place had been the scene of whispered supernatural battles, epic clashes between good and evil that had soaked the very ground with otherworldly blood and left scars on reality itself.

Of course Angelo would choose this desecrated sanctuary for whatever twisted ceremony he had planned—the irony would appeal to his theatrical sense of cruelty, conducting his unholy business in a place where prayers had once echoed off these same walls, where hope had once lived and breathed.

My throat felt like I’d swallowed razor blades as I cleared it. “That’s St. Louis Cathedral, isn’t it?”

He motioned with his arm in a gesture that was both invitation and command, his pale fingers cutting through the humid air like a blade. “Your brother awaits you.”

I forced my trembling legs to carry me forward along the worn path toward the massive oak doors, each step feeling like I was walking deeper into my own grave.

The ancient wood seemed to pulse with malevolent energy, scarred by decades of weather and worse things that had no names.

As I approached, the doors swung open with a groan that sounded like the earth itself crying out in anguish—no hand touched them, no mechanism visible, as if the very building hungered for my entrance.

Blood surged through my veins so violently I thought it might burst through my chest entirely, coloring the church steps crimson. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to run, to turn and flee back into the relative safety of the swamp, but Steve’s face burned in my mind like a brand.

I braced myself for Angelo’s inevitable assault—waited for powerful hands to seize me, for fangs to tear into my throat, for raging vampire fury to descend upon me like a biblical plague. My shoulders hunched, muscles coiling in anticipation of violence.

But instead, I startled backward as a figure emerged from the church’s yawning shadows like a specter materializing from a nightmare.

Marsha Cadieux stepped into the dappled sunlight, and the sight of her awoke all my nightmares.

She wore a simple long black dress that seemed to absorb the light around her and pearls that gleamed with an elegance which felt obscene in this place of decay.

Her black hair was pulled up in a loose bun that spoke of casual sophistication, but it was the cruel smile that twisted her lips—sharp and savage as a shark scenting blood—that made my world tilt sideways.

The blood drained from my face, my vision narrowed to a tunnel focused solely on her triumphant expression. “Marsha?” The name escaped my lips like a prayer to a god who had already abandoned me.

“Joy, run! Get out of here!” Steve’s voice cracked like a whip through the air, raw with desperation and pain. My head snapped toward the sound, and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces at the sight of him.

My older brother was chained to the church wall like a crucifixion, his body a canvas of bruises and blood, his clothes torn and hanging in tatters.

Dark stains spread across the stone beneath him, and his face—god, his beautiful face—was swollen and cut, one eye nearly sealed shut from the beating he’d endured.

I had to save him. There was no choice, no other option that my heart could accept.

Tingles swept over me like electricity as I pulled on my shadows, feeling them respond to my desperate call.

The darkness moved toward us with unnatural purpose, flowing like liquid night across the ground, ready to obey my will no matter the cost.

Marsha moved with inhuman speed. Her fingers clamped around both my wrists like iron manacles, her grip so tight I heard my bones creak in protest. I was too stunned by Dimitri’s betrayal, too overwhelmed by the sight of my tortured brother, to react until the cold bite of silver bracelets snapped into place around my wrists like shackles forged in hell itself.

Once the bracelets were slapped on me, the shadows dissipated and disappeared.

Agony exploded up my arms in waves of liquid fire, the silver burning through my skin like acid, making every nerve ending scream in protest. The pain was so intense black spots danced at the edges of my vision, and I bit my tongue hard enough to taste copper just to keep from crying out.

I stared at my bound wrists, swaying on my feet as the silver burned like acid against my skin. “What did you do?”

“This binds magic, especially Unseelie magic,” a male voice said behind me, the tone cold and satisfied, dripping with dark amusement. But something was wrong—the voice didn’t carry Dimitri’s familiar accent, didn’t have the cadence I’d grown accustomed to from him.

Terror clawed up my spine with icy fingers as I whirled around, my silver-bound hands useless in front of me.

What I saw made reality crumble around me like a house of cards in a hurricane.

Dimitri’s face—those familiar brown eyes and dark tousled hair that had become a strange comfort in this nightmare—seemed to ripple and melt away like a mirage in the desert heat.

In its place, long blond hair cascaded over broad shoulders, and piercing blue eyes stared at me with the cold hunger of a devil who had finally cornered a soul.

But it was the massive black wings that erupted from his back with a sound like thunder that sent panic sweeping through me in a tidal wave of pure terror.

They spread, wide and magnificent, each feather gleaming with an oily darkness that seemed to absorb light itself, casting shadows that moved independently of their source.

I stepped back, fear bursting inside me like a bomb. “Who, what are you?”

He bowed slightly. “I’m Ari, the Dark Demon. You’ve been my prisoner before sweetheart. You thought Maximo Barone was your captor.” He winked. “But it was me. I wore his face for some time. I fooled all the mafia kings, along with your precious enforcer.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face and black dots were floating around me. “This can’t be happening.” But it was. I was broken, betrayed, and bound in silver that burned like the fires of damnation, and I was his prisoner.

“You’re my slave once again. You escaped once, but you won’t escape again.” His gaze gleamed with the kind of cruel anticipation that promised unspeakable horrors. “If your hero comes here, he’ll never make it out alive.”

His smile was a slash of pure malevolence across his beautiful, terrible face—and it was the last thing I saw before the world exploded into darkness and despair. The silver bracelets pulsed with burning agony, sending waves of fire up my arms that made my vision blur and my knees buckle.

Even through the haze of pain, survival instinct kicked in.

I forced my eyes to scan the shadowy interior of the desecrated church, hunting desperately for the familiar figure of the vampire mafia king.

Surely Angelo would emerge from behind the crumbling altar or step out from the confession booth that had probably heard more sins than absolutions.

But the sacred space felt wrong, empty of his commanding presence.

“Where’s…Angelo?” I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pulsing pain, my throat clicking audibly in the oppressive silence. Was he on some gruesome errand, turning the bayou red with someone else’s blood while his enemies moved against him?

Ari’s hand shot out like a striking snake.

His fingers seized my cheeks in a biting grip, his nails digging into my skin hard enough to leave marks.

Pain bloomed across my face as he pinched with deliberate, calculated cruelty, his supernatural strength making my bones creak ominously under the pressure.

“Angelo had nothing to do with this, you naive little mortal.” His breath was cold against my face, carrying the scent of sulfur and ancient malice.

My cheeks burned where his fingers pressed, and my tears threatened to spill from the combination of physical pain and crushing despair.

“He’s as much in the dark as Enzo. Soon, I’ll bring them both down.”

His grip tightened until I was sure he would shatter my jaw, his blue eyes blazing with megalomaniacal fervor that made my blood freeze. The black wings behind him rustled with anticipation, each feather catching the filtered sunlight and reflecting it back like obsidian mirrors.

“I’m just getting started,” he whispered, and the absolute certainty in his voice—the complete absence of doubt or fear—was more terrifying than any threat he could have made.

In that moment, staring into those pitiless blue depths while his fingers branded pain into my face, I wasn’t just trapped in a web of supernatural politics.

I was caught in the schemes of someone who truly believed himself to be a god.