Page 27 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)

T he protective wards carved into Bastien’s office doorframe exploded at eleven forty-seven.

Silver fire consumed ancient symbols in seconds, leaving nothing but char and the acrid scent of burning lacquered lumber. His phone rang before the last sparks died—Maman Brigitte’s number, but her voice carried strain he’d never heard before.

“They took Vincent. Walked through his apartment walls like they owned the place.” No greeting, no explanation of who ‘they’ were. She knew he’d understand. “Meet me at St. Louis Cemetery. We need to see what Charlotte really built there.”

The line died, leaving him staring at his phone while dread settled in his chest. Vincent Broussard—the psychic musician, Jacques’s cousin—had been showing early signs of the spreading contamination.

If entities were escalating from marking to abduction, everyone touched by the soul-binding curse faced immediate danger.

Bastien grabbed weapons that felt pathetically inadequate—blessed silver, iron stakes, salt charged with divine energy. But he suspected whatever hunted marked souls operated beyond physical law, in dimensions where conventional protection offered little more than psychological comfort.

The cemetery gates stood open despite the midnight hour, wrought iron swinging in humid air that carried no breeze. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 spread before him in neat rows of marble tombs and weathered stone, above-ground burial necessitated by the city’s relationship with water and yellow fever.

Maman waited beside Marie Laveau’s tomb, her usual composed authority shattered. Tears streaked her face, and her hands shook as she traced protection symbols that flickered weakly in the darkness.

“Vincent was helping me research the contamination patterns,” she said without preamble. “Found connections between the marked families and old burial records. Then shadows came through his apartment walls like they owned the place.”

“What kind of shadows?”

“The kind that wear faces but cast no reflections. The kind that speak with voices borrowed from the dead.” She gestured toward the famous tomb beside them, where offerings of coins and flowers now appeared disturbed, scattered as if something had searched through them.

“They left a message. Said the bloodline anchor must choose before dawn, or harvesting begins.”

Dawn.

“What exactly must she choose?”

“Walk the perimeter with me. You need to see what Charlotte really built here.”

The cemetery’s layout followed patterns established when yellow fever made traditional burial impossible. But as they moved between marble monuments, Bastien’s enhanced senses detected wrongness beneath the familiar architecture.

Protective wards were failing throughout the grounds.

Symbols carved into tomb foundations flickered like dying candles, their power drained by forces that left no physical evidence.

Even the consecrated earth felt compromised, as if something was systematically poisoning the spiritual infrastructure.

Three rows from Marie Laveau’s tomb, he found what Maman had discovered.

A symbol burned into weathered marble, char still warm despite the night air. But this wasn’t one of the aggressive glyphs spreading through the Quarter. This symbol contained itself, defensive rather than invasive.

Lacroix family sigils. Charlotte’s work but designed to suppress rather than channel power.

“Protective array inversion,” Maman said, her voice steadying as she focused on the discovery. “These markings were carved to suppress soul-binding magic, not enable it.”

The pieces clicked into place. Charlotte hadn’t died attempting forbidden consciousness preservation. She’d died defending New Orleans from the same entities now hunting marked souls.

“She was trying to stop them.”

“Look around. These symbols cover the entire northern section.”

What he’d taken for decorative stonework revealed itself as systematic magical architecture. Ward patterns worked into foundations, protection spells hidden beneath moss and weathering, an entire network of defensive ritual work that had operated undetected for over two centuries .

Charlotte had built a fortress around the dead to protect the living.

“The current contamination—it’s designed to corrupt her protections,” Maman continued, kneeling beside one of the marked stones. “Turn defensive magic into harvesting networks. Someone’s been working decades to reverse-engineer what she built.”

They moved deeper into the cemetery's northern section, where older tombs crowded together in arrangements that seemed random but revealed themselves as deliberate positioning.

Each monument anchored protective barriers, creating overlapping fields of resistance against entities that operated through soul-binding manipulation.

But the defenses were weakening. Symbols that should have blazed with protective energy flickered weakly, their power diminished by systematic corruption that left no obvious source.

Movement between distant tombs caught his attention. Shadows gathering with substance that suggested intelligence rather than mere absence of light. They moved like smoke given form, coalescing into shapes that hurt to perceive directly.

The air around them grew thick and heavy, pressing against their skin like winter fog. Breath misted in sudden cold that wasn’t weather related.

“We have visitors,” Bastien said, hand moving to weapons he knew would prove useless.

The shadows took human form—tall, elegant, wearing expensive clothes from no particular era. Features remained impossible to focus on, as if the entity existed slightly outside normal reality. When it spoke, words came from all directions simultaneously .

“How touching. The guardian angel and his witch, picking through graves like children hunting treasure.”

The same type of entity that had spoken through Camille Landry’s voice at the hospital, using her voice to deliver threats about harvesting marked souls.

But this one stood before them in its own form, no borrowed flesh required.

It radiated authority that made Bastien’s fallen nature recoil with recognition of something that had existed since creation’s first laws were written.

“Though ultimately irrelevant to predetermined outcomes,” it continued, form shifting like smoke approximating humanity.

“Charlotte’s protections held for over two centuries,” Maman said, moving between the entity and the famous tomb. “Your harvesting failed then. It’s failing now.”

“Temporary inconvenience. The Lacroix bloodline fed power to these pathetic scratches on stone through each reincarnation—fresh meat connecting to prepared anchors, bleeding essence into barriers they thought would save them.” Its attention turned on Bastien like the weight of a collapsing star.

“But without trained practitioners to guide the feeding, the defenses starved. Knowledge rotted with the creator’s corpse. ”

Charlotte’s protective arrays weren’t self-sustaining—they needed active maintenance from descendants who understood their purpose. Knowledge that died with her, leaving the defenses to weaken across centuries of neglect.

“Delphine doesn’t know what she’s inherited.”

“Precisely. The modern incarnation possesses power but lacks understanding. Every attempt to access abilities strengthens our networks instead of maintaining ancestral defenses.” Satisfaction radiated from the entity like heat from a furnace.

“She serves our purposes while believing she serves her own.”

St. Louis Cemetery at twilight in 1905, where Delia had convinced him to visit for what she called “atmospheric research” for her theater work. She moved between marble tombs with the curiosity of someone who found beauty in unexpected places, her simple white dress catching the last golden light.

“It’s peaceful here,” she said, settling on a stone bench worn smooth by decades of mourners. “Not frightening like people expect. More like . . . like the city’s memory made visible.”

“An interesting way to describe it.”

“I suppose that’s the theater in me. Always looking for stories in stone and shadow.” She smiled, patting the bench beside her. “Sit with me. We so rarely have quiet moments together.”

The warmth of her shoulder against his, the unconscious melody she hummed while watching evening settle over the tombs—simple contentment that made even a cemetery feel like sanctuary. When she turned to face him, her eyes held nothing but trust and growing affection.

“Sometimes I think you carry too much worry,” she said, fingers brushing the line between his brows. “As if you’re protecting everyone from sorrows they don’t even know exist.”

“Perhaps I just care deeply about keeping beautiful things safe.”

Her laughter was soft as evening air. “Then you must be very tired, carrying such responsibility.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to whisper. “But you don’t have to protect me from everything, you know. Some burdens are easier when shared. ”

The kiss that followed tasted like jasmine perfume and trust freely given, like love that asked no questions because it needed no explanations.

“The modern incarnation shows signs of awakening,” the Collector observed, its attention following his thoughts with disturbing precision. “But awakening without guidance channels power through corrupted infrastructure.”

“What would proper guidance accomplish?”

“Restoration of defensive arrays to full effectiveness. Conscious choice to sacrifice individual evolution for collective protection.” The entity’s form became more substantial as it focused on specific outcomes.

“She could save thousands from harvesting. Or pursue transcendence that places her beyond our authority entirely.”