Page 47 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)
T he conference room in the catacombs below Le Petit Théatre du Vieux Carré in Jackson Square carried the scent of chicory coffee and tension thick enough to cut.
Bastien watched from the doorway as representatives from every major faction in New Orleans took their positions around the circular table he had commissioned specifically for meetings like this.
No head seat, no hierarchy—just equals preparing for war.
Maman Brigitte sat with her back to the open door in a trancelike state.
The overhead light catching the silver threads in her dark hair.
To her left, Marcus Thibodaux represented the vampire court, his pale hands folded over a leather portfolio thick with intelligence reports.
The fae contingent had sent Evangeline Dubois, whose glamour flickered between her human appearance and something with too many angles and teeth.
Father Miguel occupied the chair nearest the door, his blessed silver cross catching light each time he shifted.
And beside him, looking both out of place and perfectly natural, sat Delphine .
She had insisted on attending after her breakthrough with the binding ledger fragments.
Her laptop was open, surrounded by printouts and photographs of glyphs that would have driven most humans to madness just from looking at them.
She wore a simple black sweater and jeans, but something about her posture suggested confidence that had been growing stronger each day.
“The Maestro's compound follows classical fortification principles,” she was saying, tracing patterns on an aerial photograph with her finger.
“But these shadow configurations overlay the architecture in ways that create supernatural weak points.
See how the buildings form a pentagram when viewed from above? That's not accidental.”
Marcus leaned forward, his predatory interest focused entirely on her analysis. “You can read the defensive arrays from satellite imagery?”
“The symbols repeat across multiple historical sites I've researched. Same binding principles, same vulnerabilities.” Delphine pulled up a comparison chart on her laptop screen.
“The Maestro is using modified versions of protection spells that were old when New Orleans was founded. But age makes them predictable.”
Evangeline's laugh carried crystalline notes that made the coffee cups ring. “The mortal sees what we cannot. How deliciously ironic.”
“I'm not mortal in the way you mean,” Delphine said quietly, and Bastien's chest tightened at the certainty in her voice. She was remembering more than she admitted, even to herself.
Maman Brigitte's knowing gaze flicked to Bastien before returning to Delphine. “Show us these weak points, child. Where do we strike?”
Delphine's fingers moved across the photograph with surgical precision, marking locations where shadow and stone intersected in ways that created magical vulnerabilities. Her analysis was flawless—better than flawless. It was intuitive in ways that spoke to knowledge deeper than academic research.
“Here, here, and here,” she said, marking three points that formed a triangle around the compound's center. “Hit these simultaneously and the protective matrix collapses like a house of cards.”
Father Miguel studied the marked locations through wire-rimmed glasses. “These positions require different types of assault. Holy fire here, direct physical force there, and this one . . .” He paused, consulting notes written in Latin. “This requires someone who can work with shadow magic.”
“That would be me,” Marcus said, though his tone suggested the task was beneath his dignity. “Vampire abilities include shadow manipulation when properly applied.”
“The fae courts can provide distraction and misdirection,” Evangeline added. “We excel at making enemies see what is not there while hiding what is.”
Bastien watched the tactical discussion unfold with growing unease.
Each faction brought unique abilities to the alliance, creating a combined force capable of overwhelming almost any stronghold run by someone who collected souls.
The planning was professional, methodical, and completely dependent on intelligence that Delphine had provided with unnatural accuracy.
She was proving herself invaluable to beings who had existed for centuries before she was born. They treated her as an equal, consulting her expertise without condescension or doubt. It should have filled him with pride. Instead, it terrified him.
“We move at dawn,” Maman Brigitte declared, her voice carrying the authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed. “First light gives us maximum advantage while the Maestro's nocturnal servants are weakest.”
“Agreed,” Marcus said. “My people will be positioned here by moonset.” He marked locations on a detailed street map. “Shadow approaches, no detection until we strike.”
Father Miguel nodded slowly. “The Church's resources will be in place. Blessed weapons, consecrated barriers, everything needed to contain supernatural entities.”
“And the fae?” Bastien asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.
Evangeline's smile was sharp as broken glass. “We will be everywhere and nowhere, as always. The Maestro will find his reality . . . flexible when the time comes.”
The alliance was forming with military precision, each faction understanding their role in the coordinated assault.
Delphine continued to provide strategic insights that improved their chances of success exponentially.
But watching her work with such natural authority over supernatural warfare made Bastien's stomach clench with familiar dread.
August 1762
The same kind of alliance had gathered in Charlotte's drawing room, though the faces around the table had been different. Representatives of the old families, practitioners whose bloodlines stretched back to the settlement's founding, united against a threat that required combined action.
Charlotte stood at the head of the mahogany table, her green silk gown rustling as she gestured toward a map of the city. Red marks indicated locations where reality had grown thin, where something hungry was trying to break through from spaces between worlds .
“The incursion points follow ley line intersections,” she explained, her voice carrying the same intuitive certainty that Bastien now heard in Delphine. “We disrupt the pattern here, here, and here, and the entire manifestation collapses.”
Valentin Rousseau, the vampire representative, studied the marked locations with predatory interest. “These positions require someone who can work with dimensional barriers. Not all of us possess such abilities.”
“I do,” Charlotte said simply. “My family's magic specializes in boundary work. I can seal the tears, but I'll need cover while I work the binding rituals.”
The fae delegate—an ancestor of Evangeline's, if Bastien's research was accurate—laughed with the same crystalline notes. “Mortals wielding power they barely understand. How entertaining.”
“I'm not mortal in the way you mean,” Charlotte had replied, and the certainty in her voice had made Bastien's chest ache with recognition.
She had stood there in candlelight and silk, planning warfare with beings who had existed for centuries, proving herself invaluable through knowledge that seemed to come from sources deeper than study. The parallel to Delphine's current situation was so exact it felt like prophecy repeating itself.
Charlotte's magical contributions to that battle had been devastating and precise.
She had sealed dimensional tears with binding work that held for decades.
Her ritual preparations had involved inscribing protective circles that could withstand direct assault from entities that existed outside normal reality.
But the cost of that power had been written in the exhaustion that followed, the way she had collapsed after the final binding was complete. Magic that potent extracted a price that even vampires couldn't heal.
The memory faded, leaving Bastien back in the present with cold certainty settling in his chest. History was repeating itself with surgical precision.
Delphine was walking the same path Charlotte had taken, proving herself to vampires and fae through abilities that should have been impossible for someone with no conscious memory of their magical heritage.
“Bastien?” Delphine's voice pulled him back to the planning session. “You haven't said much about positioning. Where do you think you'll be most effective?”
The question hung in the air like a challenge. He looked around the table at faces that reflected centuries of conflict, then at Delphine, who was studying him with growing concern.
“I'll be wherever you are,” he said finally. “Someone needs to watch your back while you're providing tactical support.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can. That's not the point.”
Their gazes held across the table, and for a moment everyone else in the room seemed to fade into background noise. Something flickered behind Delphine's eyes—not quite recognition, but awareness of depths she couldn't name.
Then the moment passed, and she was back to studying maps and defensive configurations.
“The ritual preparations will require specific materials,” Father Miguel said, consulting his Latin notes. “Blessed salt, silver blessed under three different moons, vervain harvested during?—”
“I know where to get everything,” Delphine interrupted, then looked startled by her own certainty. “I mean, my research has covered historical procurement methods for ritual components. There are suppliers who maintain the old traditions.”
Maman Brigitte's eyebrows rose. “Child, you just listed sources that most practitioners take decades to discover.”
“Lucky guess?” Delphine's smile was uncertain, but Bastien caught the flash of something else in her expression. Knowledge trying to surface through layers of forgetting.
The alliance meeting continued for another hour, covering tactical details and contingency plans with military thoroughness.
Each faction would handle specific aspects of the assault, using their unique abilities to maximum advantage.
The coordination was impressive, professional, and completely dependent on strategic intelligence that Delphine provided with unnatural accuracy.
When the meeting finally adjourned, representatives filed out with the quiet confidence of people who had done this before. Only Maman Brigitte lingered, her dark eyes studying Delphine with speculation that made Bastien's protective instincts flare.
“Walk with me, child,” she said to Delphine. “There are things we should discuss.”
Delphine gathered her research materials, moving with efficiency that spoke to organizational habits developed over lifetimes. “What kind of things?”
“The kind that might save your life when reality starts bending around you.”
They left together, Maman's voice drifting back as they descended the stairs toward the street. Bastien remained in the empty conference room, staring at the maps and photographs that showed exactly how to destroy the Maestro's defenses .
His phone buzzed with a text from Marcus:
The mortal impresses even old blood. Where did you find her?
Another message followed immediately from Evangeline:
She tastes of older magic than her years should allow. Curious.
Father Miguel's text was more direct:
That woman has been touched by forces that predate the Church. Watch her carefully.
Bastien deleted all three messages without responding.
They were seeing what he had tried to deny for weeks—Delphine was remembering.
Not consciously, not completely, but enough to access knowledge that belonged to previous lifetimes.
Her strategic insights came from Charlotte's experience with supernatural warfare.
Her intuitive understanding of binding magic reflected skills developed across centuries.
The awakening was accelerating, triggered by proximity to the very conflicts that had defined her past lives. Tomorrow's battle would push her even further toward full awareness, possibly beyond the point where he could protect her from the consequences of remembering everything she had lost.
He gathered the tactical materials, noting how Delphine's handwriting had grown progressively more confident throughout the meeting.
Her notes were precise, organized, written in a style that reminded him of Charlotte's academic documentation.
Even her penmanship was changing, subtle shifts that spoke to personality traits reasserting themselves after decades of dormancy.
Outside the windows, afternoon light painted the French Quarter in shades of gold and amber.
Somewhere in those narrow streets, vampires and fae were beginning their preparations for dawn.
Weapons blessed and sharpened, spells prepared and tested, alliances confirmed through bonds that went deeper than mere convenience.
And in the center of it all, Delphine was discovering abilities that should have been impossible while walking steadily toward revelations that might destroy the careful balance he had spent twenty years maintaining.
Bastien locked the conference room and made his way upstairs, where the normal sounds of tourist activity created a comforting illusion of mundane reality.
But he could feel the supernatural tension building like pressure before a storm.
Tomorrow would bring confrontation, violence, and revelations that would change everything.
The only question was whether Delphine would survive the awakening that seemed increasingly inevitable.
His phone buzzed one more time. A text from an unknown number.
She remembers more than she admits. Even to herself. Be ready.
The message deleted itself before he could respond, leaving no trace except the cold certainty that tomorrow would force choices he had been avoiding for too long.
Dawn was twelve hours away. Twelve hours to prepare for a battle that would determine not just the Maestro's fate, but Delphine's future as well.
Bastien stepped into the afternoon crowd and began making his own preparations for tomorrow's storm.